The Door In The Floor vs Fearless

Because Jeff Bridges is my favorite actor, I've seen The Mirror Has Two Faces, K-Pax and Arlington Road. In other words, I've seen movies I would have skipped had they starred merely, say, Pierce Brosnan, Kevin Spacey or Tim Robbins, which they did. So when a movie comes along that has Jeff Bridges and seems to be worthy of his talents, then I'm doubly excited.

The Door in the Floor, the latest Jeff Bridges movie, was based on a book I didn't read. Surprise. From what I understand, though, it's only based on the first third of the book, so maybe I'll set aside Febuary or March and buckle down with that first third. It's not that I'm a slow reader, I just forget sometimes that I'm reading at all; a couple weeks will pass and I'll realize, oh yeah, I was reading that book. Bridges plays Ted Cole, a children's book author and illustrator. He's quite difficult and troubled, but his talent is obvious, so most people suffer him gladly as he stomps and snorts his way through life. Ted is one of those passionate people who seem maybe just passionate about passion itself, and if he wasn't a writer or a painter, he'd still walk around naked all day and demand squid ink from his personal assistant. Ted is married to Marion (Kim Basinger), who is so sad and lonely she sometimes freezes completely, staring off into the distance. She's beautiful and charismatic, but so fragile I was afraid for her to go to the beach, lest she flake apart like someone made of ashes. Ted suggests that they separate for the summer, with them taking turns living at the beach house and the house in town. Marion agrees, even though switching houses constantly seems like the sort of thing that wouldn't exactly do wonders for depression. Because Marion's relationship with Ted is on shaky ground from the start of the movie, there's not much for us to hang on to, but it's clear they've been fond of each other in the past, and might even think their marriage will work eventually.

Ted and Marion have a daughter, Ruth, a smart little girl they had as a mid-life replacement for their teenage boys who died. Ruth has learned everything about her brothers through the stories behind the dozens of meticulously framed and mounted pictures lining the beach house walls. Ted is writing a new book, and for the summer, has a new assistant, a young man named Eddie (Jon Foster). Eddie is a student at a nearby prep-school, and also wants to be a writer. I'm not sure what he thought he was in for, but his duties are basically just typing and driving (Ted has lost his license, no doubt due to his constant drinking). Eddie is fascinated by Ted, but even more so by his estranged wife, who seems torn between regarding him as a replacement son and a replacement husband. Marion is protective of Eddie, making sure he gets a good meal, but also seduces him, in a scene so straightforward it could be played for laughs and/or titillation, but instead is quiet and sweet, despite being illegal. Marion's affair with Jon is more than just a Mrs. Robinson-style fling, but it's also less. It's serious enough that the characters seem believably drawn to each other, but not so deep that anyone will miss it when it's over, on screen or off. Basinger is luminous as Marion. She makes a lot of questionable choices in the film, but I went with it, because of Basinger's sincerity. You get the idea that she's thought of everything else, so any new impulse registers merely as an option, regardless of the consequences. Basinger is mostly quiet in the film, keeping her eyes half-lidded and speaking through pursed lips. It's easy to be distracted by the sexuality of her character (and director Tod Williams does go overboard with this from time to time, as he does with an odd, comical scene near the end), and that's too bad, because you might miss just how good Basinger is in The Door in the Floor. Likewise, Jon Foster is good, elevating a typical coming-of-age subplot into something more human. Eddie is a smart kid, but not bold or aggressive, until he has to be.

Jeff Bridges, though, is the draw. His Ted Cole is a work of artistry you probably wouldn't have gotten in a non-Jeff Bridges Door in the Floor. Ted is infuriatingly complex. He insists on human models for his children's books, which isn't that odd, except he insists on mother/daughter teams, and builds their trust until the mothers are naked and most likely sleeping with him. (One model is played by Mimi Rogers in one of those performances that gets called things like “brave” or “shocking” when we really mean “naked” and “shrill”.) His obsessions with competition and domination are strange and frightening, yet he's a tender father with Ruth, and introspective about his dead sons. Like Marion, Ted makes choices that will have you shaking your head, but with most of them seeming true, we're left relating to a human being, even if it's a character that doesn't go far in earning our admiration. Near the end of the movie, Ted and Bridges give their all in retelling the story of how the boys died. Ted is speaking in the language of children's books, in a soothing monotone, while delicately edited scenes of the accident are sampled in slowly. It's a beautiful scene, delivered by a master, and it makes all the frustrations of the dysfunctional Cole family worth it for Eddie and for me.

The Door in the Floor, ultimately, is a movie of sadness and of redemption, but it's not an easy trip. The redemption hasn't been clearly earned at the end, and the sadness, we know, will never go completely away, even if characters do. It reminded me of another Jeff Bridges movie, with another smart, underappreciated Jeff Bridges performance: Fearless.

Fearless, directed (wonderfully) by Peter Weir, tells the story of Max Klein, who is one of a handful of survivors of a brutal plane crash. He's offered a new flight home, but elects instead to drive, which he does quite recklessly. He stops and visits an old high school girlfriend, who has settled into a sort of suburban loneliness, and mistakenly thinks Max wants a fling. They have lunch, and Max orders a bowl of strawberries. But isn't Max allergic to strawberries? Didn't he almost die once from eating them? These early scenes make us think that Fearless is going to become either a supernatural thriller, where maybe Max died after all, or has new powers or something, or one of those sappy Yuppie Redemption movies, where Max was cold, but becomes warm and cuddly when his life is threatened. Turns out it's neither. Max is alive, but difficult and distant. When he finally makes it back home, his wife (Isabella Rosselini) and son are thrilled and relieved to see him, but he doesn't seem to know what the big deal is. Max is constantly followed around by a therapist, played by John Turturro, but the only person he feels like talking to is Carla (Rosie Perez) a woman he met in group therapy.

Carla was on the flight too, but lost her baby, Bubble. She tried to belt him down, but the flight attendant told her he'd be fine if Carla just held him, and she couldn't. Carla is a walking bruise, barely ever talking above a whisper, her eyes constantly tear-swollen. We get the idea she was a fun, vibrant mother and wife, but now it seems to take colossal effort for her to sit up in a chair. That Carla is played by Rosie Perez is probably kind of a surprise, since Rosie Perez does not remotely fit the character I described. It's one hell of a performance, one I wish more people would see. Perez's Carla is fragile and angry, constantly fighting back tears. She has scenes of shocking emotion too, confronting the flight attendant who she feels killed her baby, and breaking down into a stream of Hail Marys and Our Fathers and prayer that is so raw it's near-primal. Perez gets very little credit for her skill; she's mostly considered sassy or fly or whatever. Watch this one with White Men Can't Jump and you'll see a range of performance not available to most actors.

But Fearless, as you could have guessed, belongs to Jeff Bridges. There are so many big movie star moments in Fearless, and Bridges sidesteps them all, in favor of originality or truth or humanity. He's good. There's a series of scenes where Max takes Carla shopping for their dead relatives. It sounds morbid, but it's a cathartic, fun experience for them, with Carla taking a moment to lean in close behind a woman carrying a baby…and breathe deep. Afterward, Max tries to recreate the crash, to prove to Carla that she couldn't save her baby. I'd advise you to look away, but the sound is even more powerful, so make like Carla, and brace yourself. Bridges is especially potent in these moments, when we wonder if Max is going to heal Carla in time to recover what's left of his sanity. I used to wish Jeff Bridges would get some kick-ass role like the ones Harrison Ford or Bruce Willis get, where he could dive from explosions and make twenty million a picture. Now, of course, I realize who has the last laugh. I watch movies like The Big Lebowski and American Heart and The Fabulous Baker Boys, and I realize, you know, they wish.

The Door in the Floor: B
Fearless: A