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Reviews
The Door (2012)
Too Many Gaps to Honor the Story
I originally turned the movie off about a third into it because there were too many missing pieces to understand character motivations. The characters move through the plot line like cardboard cutouts or puppets. One minute the rich couple is adjusting to Emerenc presence and unusual style the next the husband throws a temper tantrum. The idea that Magda writes a prize winning book and faces no challenges from the Cold War regime is a big miss and distraction.and the director misses so many chances to describe the poetry and irony of life. The director also treats the audience as somehow clueless. For instance there is a storm and Emerence runs frightened of the lightning back to her house. Tibor and Magda observe this and Tibor says quite melodramatically and almost as an aside to the audience "There MUST be a reason!" Well duh, we can deduce that. And yet at other moments we are left wondering who other characters are and what significance they have in the plot. Even the dog is portrayed as a kind of old Lassy movie stereotype which might have been more believable if more scenes were shown with Emerence making a connection with and showing some hidden traits of empathy so we could believe the dogs amazing near human reactions. I finally turned the movie on again and watch it to the end. My conclusion is that without having read the book, the movie betrays the story and fails to adequately involve the viewer in the inner psyche and motivations of the characters other than Emerenc, the zeitgeist of Cold War Hungary, and the poetic metaphors that a good novel can convey. For me, not worth the watch unless you want to be left wishing this potentially poignant story had been told in the way certain British mini series can only portray. Perhaps someone will do a remake one day.