Must See Movie...

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Given the themes of this movie, it is particularly sad that it is such a boring and plodding exercise in poor film-making. The cast seems either drugged or not drugged enough, with the exceptions of Paul James as Shawn and Walton Goggins as Joe, who seemed to be breathing at least. The staging and lighting were horrific. The make-up and wardrobe were worse. The writing was stilted and paced for a depressed tortoise. Anthony LaPaglia did not seem the same actor who has done so many good roles. Isabella Rossellini appeared to have been injected with Botox and walked/talked like a robot. The soundtrack was the most annoying thing about the film. It was like Philip Glass on downers at the piano. Fingernails on a chalk board. Perhaps the portrayal of a really broken down housing project in a big city was accurate. But it seems quite pathetic that that element was the redeeming part of the movie, doesn't it? Glancing references are made to insanity, incest, child molestation, and homophobic rape. As in "Oh, by the way...." The DVD I watched had an interview with the writer/director who proudly spoke of the embellishments he made to the original play. It's scary to think he thought the movie was better than the original play.

I thought that the premise of the movie was very interesting and a good reflection of how living conditions, (less then the architecture itself) affect social interaction and psychology. The activist claims that people in the projects are "piled" on top of each other and I thought it was an accurate description of the reality of public housing. The rest of the movie was less interesting and confusing at times. The mother and daughter characters were seemingly out of place, especially the mother's character. The sexual overtones were likewise somewhat difficult to connect with the story. I think more could've been done to develop what started off as a good story about a compelling urban issue.

In this film each unhappy family is, to a greater or lesser extent, the architect of its own demise.Many people have criticised the film for not saying much, or for being overloaded with story lines; for not following through or following through too explicitly. All in all it clearly confuses and divides people. I think there is a problem and it is not the movie that has the problem but the audience.This story touches on some of the last taboos in cinema namely the actual visualisation of homosexual sex, and even worse in the eyes of the beholders it addresses incest. The cross cultures/cross races thing seems to me to be a side issue to the main problem illustrated here which is that each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way to quote Tolstoy (apt here as Shawn the black homosexual is reading "Anna Karenina" at one point in the action, and like Anna unable to come to terms with himself and the world in which he lives, eventually commits suicide.)The film comes originally from a stage play set in Glasgow. Some of the dialogue has been lifted straight from the play and so can sound a little stilted, but in my opinion this device helps to maintain the necessary distance between the action and the audience. This plainly is an allegorical piece, each actor fulfils a function rather than a character but the story is none the worse for that; many art house movies do likewise. It is the subject matter here that is so difficult. As for the actual movie, it looks good, in fact is amazing considering it was shot in 20 days in New York masquerading as Chicago (I assume to keep the costs down). The acting by the whole ensemble is excellent. And I think one has to give Anthony LaPaglia especial praise as the Architect in question clearly in the grip of an incestuous passion. This cannot be an easy kind of role for any actor to play, but, as one has come to expect of Mr LaPaglia, he carries it off to perfection which may go a long way to explain the uncomfortableness felt by some moviegoers. Within his oeuvre this film seems almost like a companion piece to the more hopeful "Winter Solstice". My advice to anyone wishing to see "The Architect" would be to go along with an open mind, expect to be challenged and perhaps you'll come away with the same feelings as me, that this is a good film, a thought-provoking film but not one to watch just for the pure fun of it, go and see Mr LaPaglia's other current film "Happy Feet" if you want that!

I just saw this film last night at the Denver Film Festival and didn't think it was very good. From what I have read about the original play, that sounds like it would have been the better version to see. The dialog in this film did not sound real to me. The characters were not developed. I didn't understand why the mother was so unhappy. I couldn't believe, or have sympathy for, the daughter's choices. I didn't buy the relationship between the black boy and the white boy at all. The part of the story about black woman's family was more believable but still not explored enough. Also, I think most Chicagoans will have trouble with the veracity of some of the scenes. I lived all my life in Chicago until two years ago and, I'm sorry, white teenagers do not hang out in the projects. Nor do their white fathers go there at night and hang around on roof tops smoking cigarettes.