| Overall Grade: |
A |
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| Story: |
A+ |
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| Acting: |
A+ |
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| Direction: |
A |
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| Visuals: |
B |
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Summer of Their Discontent
by Edmund (movies profile)
Dec 23, 2005
6
of
10 people found this review helpful
A children's book author and illustrator (Jeff Bridges), his wife (Kim Basinger) and their four-year-old daughter lead what appear to be a picture-perfect lives in the Hamptons. Inwardly, the couple are traumatized and heartbroken by the deaths of their two nearly grown sons before their daughter was born. A student from the exclusive prep school the husband long ago attended comes for the summer to be the husband's assistant and to learn about writing. The young man is drawn into the extreme tensions in his hosts' lives. The steady stream of unexpected things said and done by the characters draw the viewers into their inner lives. It is as if Ingmar Bergman remade SUMMER OF `42 in English.
Attending to the logical fit of the details is an important part of the experience of this film. The one thing that does not work, and strains believability, is Ms. Basinger as the wife. That mopey, withdrawn character just would not have the perfectly toned body and general radiance of Ms. Basinger.
One of the causes of the wife's estrangement is her husband's penchant for attracting women, and painting them nude. He does not technically commit adultery with them, but gets perverse gratification from demeaning them. His current such victim (Mimi Rogers) is a supporting role.
Ms. Rogers would have been more believable and more interesting than Ms. Basinger as the wife. Ms. Basinger would have been superb in an expanded version of Ms. Rogers' role. The "bankability" issue may have kept DOOR... from being the best film it could have been, in this respect.
Some children's book authors may have a just grievance with the way this particular children's author is portrayed. You may want to listen to Terry Gross's interview with children's author Daniel Pinkwater on the 7/13/04 FRESH AIR.
Those who still subscribe to Freudian psychology will find this film very hard to take. Those who study alcoholism recovery will find much in it to discuss.
This film is not particularly visually interesting, and the photography does leave something to be desired. DOOR... will register almost as well on the small screen as on the large one. But it would be a pity to wait that long to see DOOR IN THE FLOOR |
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