Movie review: The Door in the Floor

John Irving's a curious writer. I've read a few of his novels, and then last night we watched "The Door in the Floor," based on his novel "A Widow for One Year." There are frustrating commonalities in all of his stories I know:

There's the "young John Irving" character, usually a teenager, who ends up having his first sexual experience, usually with an older woman (here, Kim Basinger), and it always ends with him being screwed up (as though a 17-year-old could have an affair with Kim Basinger whose mourning the deaths of her two boys, one of whom looks just like the "young John Irving" kid, and it all ends well...).

Then there's the "old John Irving" character. Always a writer. A Garp. He's wise and over-sexed and clearly represents how wonderful it is to be John Irving. Here, it's Jeff Bridges (aka, the Dude).

The story is necessarily set in New Hampshire (or something very close to it), and there's a mixture of sentimentalism, humor, melodrama, and depression.

What bugs me most, perhaps, is that there's plenty of good stuff going on, too. In the books, Irving's a strong writer. His prose is engaging and interesting. On the screen, the storylines, though predictable, have some good twists and at least have fun with boring ideas.

So I can't just outright not like Irving. "The Door in the Floor" is ok, not great, not bad. Jeff Bridges is typically good, typically Dude-like. Kim Basinger plays traumatized well. The symbolism is heavy-handed and obvious, but that's sometimes overcome by the funnier moments, like Mimi Rogers' tirade near the end.

To sum it up: eh.