Isabella Rossellini Movie:

		List Price: $19.98		Label: Magnolia Salesrank: 67223 Released: December 5, 2006
		Our Price: $9.00
		Used Price: $8.28
		MPAA Rating: R (Restricted) Media: Blu-ray

Editorial Review:
Anthony LaPaglia stars in THE ARCHITECT, a harrowing and ultimately human story of two very different families. Leo Waters (LaPaglia) is an idealistic architect and patriarch of an affluent, suburban Chicago family living with his troubled wife, Julia (Isabella Rossellini), blossoming daughter, Christina (Hayden Panettiere) and conflicted son, Martin (Sebastian Stan). Tonya Neely (Viola Davis) is an activist trying to keep her family safe while living in crime-infested housing projects. In her ongoing campaign to get the projects torn down and rebuilt, she seeks out Leo to obtain his signature on her petition to condemn the projects he designed.

Description of The Architect [Blu-ray]:
Anthony LaPaglia, an expert at playing the conflicted Everyman, notches another such character in The Architect, a low-budget adaptation of a play by David Greig. LaPaglia plays a Chicago architect, complacent in his teaching theories and obsessed with his scale models, who doesn't comprehend the effect of his designs on the people who actually live in his buildings. Case in point: an eighties-era housing project, now overrun by gangs, drugs, and despair. It's gotten so bad that resident Viola Davis (World Trade Center) is petitioning the city to tear the place down, and she's approached the architect about signing. Meanwhile, the movie ranges across the families of both characters, including LaPaglia's massively confused teenaged kids (Hayden Panettiere, Sebastian Stan), both of whom are trying on unfamiliar sexual roles. Isabella Rossellini plays LaPaglia's dazed wife, who straightens up the house in order to stave off the unhappiness of her marriage. In short, there's a lot going on here, too much for the brief running time of the movie; these people tend to have emblematic traits and not much else. Enlivened by actors, that kind of thing can work better on stage than in film, where the material feels skeletal. LaPaglia and Davis are in excellent form, however, and earn some of the power of the final moments. --Robert Horton

The Architect [Blu-ray] Reviews:
ordinary people 30 years later
2008-05-12 - this movie was one of the most depressing I have seen in 10 years. The DVD jacket could be called "bait and switch". nothing was said about the lack of dimension of the characters. If looking for a good movie along this type that truly is a character study try "Ordinary People".

Waste of Money
2007-09-28 - Absolutely zero benefit from Blu-Ray on a movie like this, not to mention this movie just flat out stinks. I am all about the serious drama, but this was the serious sleeper, as in I could not stay awake...

A Small Independent Film with a Big Message
2006-12-06 - THE ARCHITECT is a film based on a play by David Grieg that deals with social class dichotomy, lack of communication in families, gender confrontations in youths, and coming to grips with decisions of the past that later haunt. Made on a budget less than a million dollars and shot in twenty days, this unique little movie packs a wallop in the most secretive and subtle way. Directed by Matt Tauber, who also wrote the screenplay with Grieg, it has a fascinating, if at times disconcerting, format of quick scenes flashed before our eyes like simultaneous conversations - and some of the power of the film is piecing those snapshots together as the film ends.

Leo Waters (Anthony LaPaglia) is a successful architect, married to a wife Julia (Isabella Rossellini) who seems on the edge of mental instability. They have two teenage children - Christine (a very fine young actress Hayden Panettiere) who at age 15 is aware of her body and yet fearful of its implications in her interactions with boys and men, and Martin (Sebastian Stan) who has returned home from school as a drop out whose mind is preoccupied with soul searching. The discord at home is matched by the incipient calamity ongoing at a Project Leo designed early in his career, a Project now physically crumbling under the weight of drug dealing, crime, and discontent tenants - all led by activist Tonya Neeley (the superb actress Viola Davis) who has one daughter at home with an early conceived baby and another daughter who has stepped out of the Projects to better her education (her twin brother committed suicide in despair of his plight in the Projects). Two families in conflict over different reasons on the surface but sharing a similarity that is demonstrated as the story proceeds.

Christina naively begins to frequent bars and is protected by a truck driver Joe (the very fine actor Walton Goggins) who kindly introduces her to the realities facing hormonally charged yet fearful young girls. Martin, in an attempt to understand the Projects problem as explained to his father and family by Tonya, visits the Projects and meets Shawn (the very fine and handsome young actor Paul James) who cautiously helps Martin discover his sexuality only to succeed in allowing Martin to discover his true sexual proclivity but meets a sad ending when he is rebuffed.

At the peak of tensions Tonya succeeds in winning over Leo's understanding of her activist dilemma, Julia breaks and leaves her family and both of Leo's children discover life lessons that will imprint their psyches permanently. Minor victories rise out of major turmoil - and the writer and director have the courage to leave the story for us to resolve.

It is refreshing to encounter a cast of actors so sensitive as this one. From the leading roles to the most minor of characters the acting is absolutely first rate. We need more films of this caliber to remind us that one of the purposes of art is to allow us to see the problems of our world. Highly recommended. Grady Harp, December 06