After the first few minutes of The Door, I was thinking, will I be able to watch this all the way through? This was because it had the hallmarks of an arty, experimental film that usually winds up too boring to watch. Happily, this turned out not to be the case.
I started out watching The Door thinking that if Helen Mirren was in it it couldn't be too weird or pretentious. And, it wasn't. But it was different, creative, engrossing and interesting. The film's Tag Line indicates that it's about a relationship between two women with the focus on the relationship. This was true however I would amend that to say that the focus was really on Mirren's character who was the oddity in it. She was the pivot around which everyone and everything revolved.
The film was written, directed and photographed well enough that it wasn't boring. And, the acting, especially of Mirren, helped immensely. Someone without her skill and talent wouldn't have pulled it off. The character she played was unpleasant, bossy, critical, and lived by her own rules. At the same time there was enough about her that was positive to allow the film to work.
This is the kind of film you don't want to miss if you like to watch those that are not only entertaining but are something of a phenomenon, causing you to think.
