The Door

2009 "If you could go back in time, would you?"
6.7| 1h43m| en
Details

A successful artist loses control of his life after his young daughter's death. A chance for a new start appears, but all is not what it seems.

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Plustown A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.
Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
Melanie Bouvet The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.
Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
Horst in Translation ([email protected]) "Die Tür" or "The Door" is a 100-minute German movie from 6 years ago. The main character, David, is played by Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen, already a distinguished Bond villain at this point. But let's talk about this film here. I quite liked the suspense from start to finish. We see a man who has an affair and has sex with his mistress while his little daughter drowns in a swimming pool. However, "lucky" for him, now a couple years later, he runs into a portal with the help of which he can reappear moments before the tragic accident and save his daughter. Next, this film takes on one question I have always been curious about in films about time travel. What happens when you find yourself from that era? And why, so frequently, isn't it happening. Well.. here it does and it has no good consequences for the old David. So, for a large part of the film, the new David lives the life of the old David until things get complicated in terms of a corpse and an aggressive neighbor and his "special unit".This is a a bit of an identity theft movie even, only that he stole his own identity. Mikkelsen plays his part well as usual, but the supporting cast is fine too. Jessica Schwarz shines as the main character's wife. Heike Makatsch has a couple solid scenes as his mistress and Valerian Eisenbart plays her scenes nicely too. I am quite a fan and think she is among the most talented actresses from her (very young) age group. She played in recent years in the "Fünf Freunde" films and I'm sure we will see a lot more from her in years to come. And finally, lets talk a bit about Thomas Thieme. I really love him as an actor and it's bizarre how he is so unknown, even here in Germany, looking at all the famous films he appeared in. Unfortunately, I must say that I was not too impressed by him here. But that had nothing to do with his acting really, but more with the last half hour that I did not like that much really in terms of the writing. I thought this worked best when it was purely about identity theft and the main character's interactions with his family etc. and there was no need to make this so violent with people killing (and trying to kill) doppelgangers all the time.All in all, this is a fairly great film for the first hour or so and okay for everything afterward. I recommend this to everybody who loves German films, love suspenseful thrillers, likes the actors (especially Mikkelsen) in here in other roles or is just interested in the depiction of time travel in movies. Pay attention to the blue butterfly. Anno Saul, Jan Berger and Akif Pirinçci, the people behind the creation of this film, have all worked on other movies I liked, so no surprise I liked this one here as well. Thumbs up, this was a good watch.
hoytyhoyty The premise of this story is so utterly ridiculous, that you rapidly appreciate that it can go in any direction. Whatever the writers choose to pursue as the actual tale, is entirely their right.What they do pursue, is a tense little drama based around the situation that the magic creates. The result is a dark, edgy, occasionally morbid fairy tale - one could argue that all fairy tales are like that anyway.Mads gives his usual beautiful-teak performance (I'm sure the man has more than one act... then again, I don't really care if he does), and the supporting cast, particularly the wife and daughter, are excellent.I did like the way the story gets on top of you, and accelerates. There is a story by Charles Stross that this movie reminds me of, but I can't give you the name without spoiling (it's also not one of his better tales I'm afraid).Where I could possibly knock off points would be maybe in the logic, but then this isn't an SF tale, it's fantasy. It's also a little long for the tale it tells, it could have been just a bit more compressed for the content. Finally, it's just not a work that moved me - it's good, it's gripping, it's entertaining. But it's not high art.I can recommend this film, just don't expect it to blow your mind.
Bene Cumb Within last decades, suspense thrillers have become trendy, and novelists and screenwriters try to create the source materials as mind-twisting and twisted as possible. While focusing on such a turn/twist, they form rather trivial story around it - intentionally or spontaneously. All this applies to the film in question, where the basic story is rather trivial, with keywords as middle-class family, jealousy, adultery... Well, a certain twist provides additional food for thought and even criminal moments, but all this is often difficult to follow, and collisions between someone and his/her younger version via traveling in time is not too compelling. The ending scenes add some action, but the solution is - well, you just shrug your shoulders...As usual, Mads Mikkelsen gives a strong performance (in German), and there are a few scenes without his presence, but the rest are just good, not more; anyway, admirers of Mikkelsen and/or psychological drama thrillers do probably see more interesting angles.
JvH48 I saw this film as part of the "Imagine" film festival 2011 in Amsterdam. It's about time travel, and the usual unavoidable paradoxes make me cringe on average. Don't ask me, for instance, how and why the main character moves 5 years back in time to arrive exactly a few minutes before the dramatic drowning of his daughter. Of course (?), he arrives just in time to rescue her and to literally start a new life. And then he suddenly meets his five years younger counterpart...Though similar issues could be spotted at will, this time there were so many compensating factors that I completely looked past them. We see normal human beings act in their environment, a well-to-do villa neighborhood, with no technical hocus pocus in sight. Several moving moments in the story will entertain a wide audience. You have to trust me in this, as I cannot tell more without spoiling.When leaving the theater, I gave an "excellent" score for the public prize competition. The average geek who is in constant need of technicalities and gadgets, won't have much fun. But every other "normal" viewer will be satisfied with the casting, the acting, and the setting. Go see it for yourself, and bring your family with you. Don't be afraid that the usual time travel devices will come in the way, since there aren't any.