The Door in The Floor is yet another adaptation of a John Irving book that will probably disappoint John Irving fans as well as the mighty John himself. Irving's tribulations in the movie business are pretty well known and in fact he has chronicled his frustrations in his book "My Life In Hollywood." I would have to contend that Mr. Irving could have done much worse. No right minded individual would argue that Irving's finest novels are The World According To Garp, Cider House Rules and A Prayer For Owen Meany - the latter among the Top 5 written in the 20th century.

When I look at the treatment these three books received on the silver screen I am reasonably satisfied. Garp really introduced us to a what a capable dramatic actor Robin Williams would become and definitely ranks second on the best Irving adaptation scale. Cider House Rules is the best example as to how a novel, faithfully translated, can be just as affecting as a movie. CHR is Irvings second finest novel and the film version captured a satisfying amount of the emotional core, and managed to retain the important passages of the book, even though much of the quirkier whimsical stuff and dark humor were cut for time. I think this film is really as good as you can expect an Irving book to be fleshed out for the cinema.

True Simon Birch was nothing more than a famili-fied version of A Prayer For Owen Meany, but when you think of the many layers and incredible intricacy that the novel contains - there would be no way to make it into a movie without 3 installments. They could call it "Owen Meany - Lord of the Ring Finger." Truly this book should be required reading - few can match it for emotion, imagination, poetic prose and magic. Simon Birch took the surface elements from the book and made it into a moderately enjoyable family film, which of course profited from terrific performances by a wonderful cast.

Which brings me to The Door in the Floor. Adapted from Irvings A Widow For a Year, this film does the best it can with the source material (far from Irving's best work) The film plays as kind of a homage to The Summer of 42, with the young pubescent boy enamored by an older woman who lives on the beach. Some of the cinematography is identical to Summer of 42 - the upper east coast beaches with the grassy burms and dilapidated wooden fence long since past its prime. The truth of the matter is this is not one of Irving's more inspired works and if anything the film version could have been much worse.

Jeff Bridges gives a brave and sweet performance as the alcoholic father who must be looked after by an Ivy League intern, and Kim Basinger acquits herself well enough as his bereaved wife. Former Tom Cruise spouse Mimi Rogers also pops up in one of those roles where she offers the camera plenty of full frontal nudity. I must say for a woman in her fifties she's bearing up remarkably well. The problem with the film is that the audience knows exactly where the story (I use the term loosely) is going. And to be quite frank there just isn't alot of story to work with here. In fact were it not for Bridges endearing portrayal as an alcoholic, philandering writer of children's books - there would be precious little to recommend this film, period.

The Door In The Floor is really more like a series of snapshots of these people - whom all choose to deal with loss in their own way. There are a number of memorable scenes, but if not for Bridges turn, it would have been a waste of celluloid. And in this case the source material is most culpable.