What's Behind the Facade

The Architect shows that the façade doesn’t matter: whether a luxury home or a decrepit mass housing project, the families inside can all feel misery.  This movie was as off putting as it was engaging.  There were many lines of plot that ran along side each other, dipping into each other’s paths without ever truly weaving together.  I would say that in order to enjoy this movie you must focus on performance over plot or resolution.  Anthony LaPaglia’s Leo Waters is a man whose job it is to control, design, and create but whose personal life cannot seem to fall into place with such efficiency and ease.  His wife is bored and distant, afraid that their marriage and life has left her “eroded”. His daughter is miserable, upset at her family’s dysfunction and uncomfortable and confused about her changing body and her father’s awareness of it.  His son, played by Sebastian Stan, is rebellious and in the midst of a sexual awakening that is desperate, difficult, and ultimately heartbreaking.  Alongside this story is that of Tony Neely, portrayed movingly by Viola Davis.  She feels the oppression and dangers of the world she lives in.  Gang members at every corner, smart kids dropping out of school for a life on the street.  Her eldest daughter revels in trash television so she can know that she at least has not fallen as far as some have; her youngest daughter barely even lives with her having earned a scholarship to a better school in a better part of town.  Her son’s death was the final push to begin her campaign to tear down the inefficient and inhumane housing project that was more conducive to gangs than to families.  These two worlds cross paths when Tony seeks the support of the architect of the housing facilities in her quest to tear them down and build them anew.  Only Leo’s pride will not let him concede the buildings’ failures. 

            Unfortunately, this film never quite reaches its peak.  There are brilliant moments: Sebastian Stan’s desperate surrender to his homosexual feelings, Viola Davis’ confrontation with her youngest daughter over her denial of the reason her son died, and Stan’s quiet intensity as he gazes over his one time lover’s body.  While poignant and thought provoking, these moments of intense emotion and exploration of one’s identity and one’s own hidden motivations are not connected in a way that flows or advances their meaning.  This is a movie of snapshots.  They are merely the blueprints of a great movie: terrific acting and the exploration of very real questions.  But with nothing filling in those blueprints, no structure or consistency, the film remains just that: great in concept, adequate in execution. 

Shhhh....Never Know Who's Listening

One of my biggest fears growing up was a planted camera in my room. Irrational and unlikely as it might be, the idea that someone could see what I was doing when I thought no one was watching was horrifying.  Not all camera angles are flattering!  Whether for vanity or for privacy, Harry Caul lives a life of intense privacy, fearful of people knowing more about him than he saw fit.  Perhaps this is exacerbated by his career choice, a surveillance specialist.  Francis Ford Coppala, in The Conversation, smashes Caul’s life apart. Caul takes a case that he can’t stay aloof from, too afraid that it will lead to murder.  The tension mounts and the vagueness clears through Coppala’s expert use of sound and image. The same scene repeats over and over again, a man and a woman walking in circles around a park, their voices intermittently obscured by static.  They are Caul’s latest targets and as  the scene repeats and the recording sharpens, a picture starts to emerge.  “He’d kill us if he had the chance”.

            The repetition of the mysterious conversation adds tension to the film, the truth obscured from both the viewer and Caul, being chipped away at until new conclusions arise and past ones fall.  It is both an innovative choice and a lesson: what we think we see and hear are not always the truth, our impressions are never completely accurate.  And there is always the chance that someone is listening to you.