A man lands an internship at a mysterious London firm with unconventional employees, including the charismatic CEO who is incorporating modern corporate strategy into ancient magical practices. A film by Jeffrey Walker, starring Patrick Gibson, Sophie Wilde, Miranda Otto, Rachel House, Chris Pang, Jessica De Gouw, Damon Herriman, Sam Neill, and Christoph Waltz.

Paul Carpenter (Patrick Gibson) has a job interview for a barista position at a coffee shop, but a series of strange events keep occurring. It starts with his alarm clock breaking that morning, followed by his toaster exploding, his shoelaces repeatedly snapping, and his shortcut being blocked by officials with barriers. It’s as if heaven itself is trying to prevent him from getting to the interview.

The bizarre occurrences don’t end there. While Paul is standing in line at the coffee shop waiting for his interview, he encounters Monty Smith-Gregg (Damon Herriman), a man who claims to be a former professor at King’s College. This encounter forces Paul to step out of the line to talk with him, resulting in Paul having to rejoin a queue that has grown several times longer.

After that, a dog jumps up, grabs his scarf in its mouth, and runs away. Paul chases after it into an alley next to a building, where he finds a door with a sign indicating it’s for job applicants. When he enters, he finds himself in a large room that resembles an old storage space. There he meets Sophie (Sophie Wilde), another applicant who is watching a promotional video for J.W. Wells & Co., a company Paul knows nothing about.

During the interview, the top executive Humphrey Wells (Christoph Waltz) and the board members feel impressed with Paul. They decide to hire him as a paid intern and ask him to start work immediately the following day.

Unbeknownst to Paul, J.W. Wells & Co. is in fact a company that pulls the strings behind what humans believe to be fate, coincidence, or divine intervention. They accomplish this through magic and with the help of underground-dwelling goblins, all according to their clients’ requirements.

The true goal of Humphrey is to use Paul’s special powers to help find a magical door that he lost, which he believes is still hidden somewhere in the company building.

Directed by Australian filmmaker Jeffrey Walker and written by Leon Ford, The Portable Door is a fantasy film adaptation of the novel of the same name by English author Tom Holt. The film should have been entertaining, especially with Christoph Waltz and Sam Neill in supporting roles and the strong chemistry between lead actors Patrick Gibson and Sophie Wilde. However, despite these elements, they couldn’t salvage the film’s overall entertainment value.

All the actors played their roles well, though Rosie Tanner’s character (Jessica De Gouw) seemed a bit too similar to Effie Trinket from The Hunger Games.

The visual effects in the final magical battle scenes looked very unconvincing. It’s difficult to comprehend how a 2023 film could have worse visual effects than Harry Potter, which came out 22 years earlier. This quality might have been acceptable for a television series, but not for a feature film.

The film keeps playing coy about the whole wizard thing and never really explains what the company does. It just ends up annoying viewers because we can all see exactly where this is going.

The worst part is how the narrative keeps changing direction. It starts as this fascinating magical mystery, then abruptly turns into a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy once the main character discovers the magic door.

Just when you think it can’t get more disjointed, the final act suddenly becomes a horror thriller featuring ‘goblins’ that are obviously just actors in prosthetics. And they also proudly credit The Jim Henson Company, making you expect amazing puppetry, only to deliver a tiny CGI dragon that wanders offscreen and disappears.

The Portable Door is the first book in the J.W. Wells & Co. series. The novel was first published in 2003. The book series includes six other titles: “In Your Dreams” (2004), “Earth, Air, Fire and Custard” (2005), “You Don’t Have to Be Evil to Work Here, But it Helps” (2006), “The Better Mousetrap” (2008), “May Contain Traces of Magic” (2009), and “Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Sausages” (2011).

The Portable Door had a limited theatrical release in Australia on 23 March 2023, by Madman Entertainment. The film was made available on Stan streaming service on 7 April.