Critic Reviews

A riveting urban drama that tackles a myriad of sociopolitical issues -- conflicts of race, sex, class, marriage and politics -- without spreading itself thin.

In her (Viola Davis) umpteenth turn as a strong ghetto mother, she is the life force that lifts Matt Tauber's workaday movie The Architect into an experience to savor.

There are too many characters undergoing life changes in the story for each to be properly developed in an 82-minute movie. But for the most part, the actors get the work done.

LaPaglia and Davis deliver top-notch performances that go a long way toward offsetting the material's didacticism.

It's a fairly well-written piece and an even better acted one. And these days, when independent films are increasingly the salvation of the serious American dramatic movie, it's heartening to see something like The Architect, which tries to reawaken a major American dramatic tradition and sometimes succeeds.

Perhaps urban-planning solutions are too much to expect from a Friday night at the movies, but in a film this ambitious, the evident lack of thought put into the problem is disappointing. As any architect knows, it's easier to tear down than to build up.

While it provides a sometimes thoughtful examination of modern sociological issues, The Architect unfortunately succumbs to melodrama in its depiction of its troubled characters.

It's a compact and symmetrical picture with all its plot points in the right places, but I never found it convincing in the slightest.

Deteriorates from a potentially enlightening exploration of urban development and class conflict into a preposterous melodrama.

Still feels stagebound, inert when it needs to be cinematic.