A Master Builder

This is a powerful adaptation of a great Ibsen play. And by "adaptation," I mean there's an interesting little spin that, while faithful to the original, gives this version a bit of a twist. I'm sure Ibsen would approve. But I can say no more about that without getting into spoilers.

Like everything written by Ibsen, this movie is dialogue-heavy. It's not for lovers of fast-moving flashy special effects or loud background music. You can't really watch it while surfing your cell phone; almost every line of dialogue teaches you more about the character and pushes the plot forward. Andre Gregory and Wallace Shawn are both in this film - veterans of another dialogue-heavy film, "My Dinner With Andre." Every single member of the cast is very strong. "A Master Builder" is the first Ibsen play that I ever saw, forty years ago, and it got me hooked on Ibsen for life. Check this one out and see if it hooks you, too.

Halvard Solness (Wallace Shawn) is a successful architect on his sick bed. Aline (Julie Hagerty) is his long suffering wife. He tells Dr. Herdal (Larry Pine) about how he kept his worker Ragnar Brovik (Jeff Biehl). He hired Ragnar's girlfriend Hilde Wangel (Lisa Joyce) to keep Ragnar working for him. Hilde comes over to visit Halvard. She reminds him about their first meeting ten years ago as a fourteen year old.

This is based on Henrik Ibsen's play. There is a weird unrealism by keeping all the Norwegian names. It's strange to see this exercise and a somewhat effective one. Lisa Joyce's overacting only adds to the otherworldly feel. Wallace Shawn is brilliant as always and keeps the audience's attention. Julie Hagerty does her most powerful work. It has tension from dancing on the edge of madness but it never escapes its play origins.

Wallace Shawn plays the role of Halvald Solness in this adaptation of the Henrik Ibsen play.

Shawn wrote the script. It was first staged by his friend and frequent collaborator Andre Gregory, and finally directed by Jonathan Demme for the screen. It is a portrait of peoples' misery and how a young visitor, Lisa Joyce, shakes things up. When it's a fascinating story, Demme seems uncertain of how to translate it for the screen. There are long close-ups of the performers, varied by moving the camera a bit. As a result, while it remains good, the visuals stop it from being a superior movie. Still worth a look.

Wallace Shawn is the titular aging architect who, although having a very successful career, is utterly dissatisfied. Early in his career, he usurped his mentor Andre Gregory and his career prospered while he has deliberately kept Gregory down. He has kept Gregory's son (Jeff Biehl) in his employ, refusing to let him go out on his own even though he knows he has talent because he fears being usurped in the same fashion. He employs Biehl's fiancé (Emily Cass McDonnell) and keeps her in a kind of sexual thrall to keep Biehl in line

Shawn has also prospered from his wife's (Julie Haggerty) misfortune. His career got a huge boost when her familial home burnt to the ground. This lead to severe depression on her part and the death of their infant sons due to neglect, but Shawn profited by parceling off the land and building new homes on the ruins.

Then Lisa Joyce arrives at Shawn's home. She is a casual acquaintance that they agree to put up overnight, but she reveals to Shawn that they have known each other for far longer. A decade earlier, when she was 12, he put up a building for her father and promised her he would return in 10 years to take her away. She has come to collect on the promise.

This is a very odd film. Obviously a third film project from Shawn and Gregory is of great interest, but this falls quite a bit short of the heights of "My Dinner with Andre" and "Vanya on 42nd Street". Like "Vanya", this is a play that the two have worked on for some time. Shawn provided a new translation of Ibsen's play and Gregory directed it for the stage. A filmed version of another of their adaptations of an intimate chamber play sounds promising.

Strangely though, they've taken a play that is very abstract and symbolic and given it a far more blandly realistic staging than "Vanya", which ends up making it a far more difficult play to process. While you can see setting "Uncle Vanya" in this film's rural house setting, this play screams for that film's bare stage setting. It's also odd for Shawn, who does not speak Norwegian, to provide a new translation for a play that already has a definitive English translation, and then to alter the beginning and end in a way taht renders the play even more obtuse.

Demme is also a very odd choice to direct this, and he seems sort of lost here. He just kind of steps back and points his camera at the actors.

Perhaps that is the best approach. The best thing this film has to offer is it's cast, who are really extraordinary dealing with a difficult play and odd staging by delivering really fine performances. Shawn could not be farther from Ibsen's conception of this character (Burt Lancaster in his waning years seems to be the ideal), but he does a really fine job ... he's magnetic in a part most folks will find utterly loathsome. Haggerty is magnificent and reinforces the fact that we do not see enough of her.

I can't help but feel that this will definitely be the kind of film that sort of warrants a rewatch in the future, especially because it just comes across as pretty complex, maybe too much so. It seems like a complicated play, but all I know is that the acting is outstanding. It has the sortof very dreamy, airy atmosphere that one wants out of a film like this, since it's the atmosphere that really help carry it even when the dialogue seems a bit puzzling. Overall, definitely has many admirable qualities, certainly not your run-of-the-mill stuff, but then again being based on a play one expects that. Many probably won't like it, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a definite winner.