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75A riveting urban drama that tackles a myriad of sociopolitical issues -- conflicts of race, sex, class, marriage and politics -- without spreading itself thin.
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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.
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63It'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.
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63There 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.
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63LaPaglia and Davis deliver top-notch performances that go a long way toward offsetting the material's didacticism.
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63Perhaps 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.
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60While it provides a sometimes thoughtful examination of modern sociological issues, The Architect unfortunately succumbs to melodrama in its depiction of its troubled characters.
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50Still feels stagebound, inert when it needs to be cinematic.
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50It's a compact and symmetrical picture with all its plot points in the right places, but I never found it convincing in the slightest.
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50Despite an intriguing premise in which the architect of a housing project is confronted by a resident-turned-activist who wants his help in getting the place torn down, Matt Tauber's The Architect feels schematic and contrived.
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50Deteriorates from a potentially enlightening exploration of urban development and class conflict into a preposterous melodrama.
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50Well-intentioned but obvious drama.
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42Every character in The Architect is crazily stuccoed with crisis.
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42The Architect wears its heavy social consciousness like an albatross, and Tauber's plodding, earnest direction does little to wean the material away from its stage roots.
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30A movie designed without a proper foundation -- it feels as though it might crumble at any minute.
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25Though nothing much happens, all of the actors get to do lots of teary close-ups.
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