Door in the Floor, The MPAA Rating: R Entertainment: +1 Content: -4

Ted Cole (Jeff Bridges), a successful writer of childrens books, lives with his beautiful wife, Marian (Kim Basinger), on an island off of the coast of New York in 1958. They have a precocious four-year-old daughter, Ruthie (Elle Fanning), who is obsessed with photographs of her older brothers who died as teenagers before she was born. The familys dysfunction becomes apparent when Ted hires Eddie (Jon Foster), a teenager who is the spitting image of one of their dead sons, to be his assistant for the summer. Marian still grieves over her boys, cannot relate to Ruthie, and seduces shy Eddie into a torrid love affair. Ted turns to alcohol and women to numb his pain. The Door in the Floor is an exercise in masochism for viewers expecting entertainment from two highly respected actors. The films characters are so self-absorbed and their lives so meaningless that it is hard to like anything about them or the movie.

Ted adores Ruthie, but he exposes her to inappropriate, adult situations as he walks around the house nude, always with an alcoholic drink in his hand. His explanation of her brothers deaths encourages the childs morbid fascination with death and their photos. Several extremely graphic, nude sex scenes between Eddie and Marian are particularly offensive considering this teenage actor performs lewd, pornographic sex acts. Even more disgusting is that Ruthie witnesses one of these graphic encounters. Ted confronts Eddie about what Ruthie saw, indicating that the little girl described the sex act in detail. Using children in scenes like this raises a question: Isnt this type of pornographic activity supposed to be illegal? Ted also sketches a nude woman, which includes full, frontal exposure. Add to this the foul language and heavy profanity, and The Door in the Floor receives Previews lowest rating for acceptability.

Preview Reviewer: Mary Draughon
Distributor: Focus Features