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The Architect [Blu-ray] [2006] [US Import]
![The Architect [Blu-ray] [2006] [US Import]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JY78C5CYL._SL160_.jpg)
Our Price: £12.01 (subject to change)
"You can't design cookie-cutter housing and expect us to live in it!"
Review date: 2006-12-12 Rating: 8 out of 10
Buoyed along by some find performances by its extraordinarily talented cast, The Architect is a mostly involving story where upper middle class suburban angst meets decaying urban grit. Director Matt Tauber adapted David Greig's play, changing the setting from Glasgow to Chicago; the film promoting the original play's themes of urban social conscience and the message that everybody deserves a decent place to live.
The film begins as Viola Davis' activist Tonya is collecting signatures to have her home of Eden Court torn down and she approaches the building's original architect Leo Waters (Anthony LaPaglia) to sign the petition. Eden has become an enclosed slum, she says, not only home to gangs and drug dealers, but so poorly designed it cannot be upgraded.
Of course, Leo has never visited the projects, cloistered away in his beautifully designed suburban home and waited on by his frustrated wife (Isabella Rossellini) who can barely stand him and gravitates between arguing with him while she stares at neat arrangements of lemons and breaks ceramic pots in the garden in the middle of the night.
Whilst Leo ponders on whether he will help Tonya by deciding to somehow redesign the projects, to make them more user friendly, his two teenage children gradually begin to spin out of control. His college dropout son (Sebastian Stan) is having serious identity problems, confused by his sexuality, and striking up a friendship with a cute black boy from the projects.
Leo's blossoming 15-year-old daughter (Hayden Panettierre) is in a reckless search for adult love and harbors a secret crush on her father. She decides to dress provocatively, hanging out in bars even though she is underage, and getting lifts in trucks with strange men. Even Tonya has her own crosses to bear - she lost her son a few years ago to and she blames the rotten conditions in the projects for driving him to suicide.
All the characters are self-obsessed and somewhat blinded sided by their own insecurities. Leo is especially irritating as he can't see the grass for the trees, totally oblivious to the dysfunction around him, and all he can see are the good intentions with which he began both his career and his family.
Leo adamantly tells Viola that the projects were built as cheap government housing and were not meant to tailor to individual needs. She doesn't want to listen however, obstinately telling him that any improvements he makes are useless, and the problem is not just people but the quality of housing and the fact that you can't just pile people on top of each other like dolls.
Consequently, we see Leo and his self-confidence as the structure at risk of collapsing first. The Architect is a terrific vehicle for all these actors, and in truth, they do turn in perfectly nuanced performances, especially Viola who is utterly brilliant as the frustrated and angry Tonya.
The pacing, however, is often sluggish and slow-moving, the movie takes a long time to lift off and get going, and director Matt Tauber - having rewritten the story from its original roots - has included far too many characters undergoing life changes in the story for each to be properly explored and developed in an 82-minute movie.
The Architect is indeed a noble effort but the whole experience comes across as a bit underwritten as though Tauber is just trying to stuff too much into the story, his themes of urban blight and social conservation are indeed well intentioned, but each of these characters' individual experiences could be a movie in itself, and you never get the sense that Eden Court is as really as awful and dreadful as Tonya is making it out to be. Mike Leonard December 06.
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Product Details/Specifications
Actor(s):
Anthony LaPaglia
Viola Davis
Hayden Panettiere
Isabella Rossellini
Sebastian Stan
Creators:
Anthony LaPaglia (Primary Contributor)
Viola Davis (Primary Contributor)
Matt Tauber (Writer)
Christopher Edwards (Producer)
Danny Leiner (Producer)
Declan Baldwin (Producer)
Ged Dickersin (Producer)
Jason Kliot (Producer)
David Greig (Writer)
Director(s):
Recording label: Magnolia
Manufacturer: Magnolia
EAN: 0876964000697
Binding: Blu-ray
Number of items: 1
Format: Colour, Dolby, Subtitled, Widescreen,
Release date: 2006-12-05
Universal product code (UPC): 876964000697
Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
Running time: 82 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2006
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: Spanish (Subtitled)