Design/Film: The Architect

“As an Architect I have the job of transforming hopes and dreams into wood, glass, steel and concrete. But if the dreams aren’t there, there is very little I can do.”

– a line from the The Architect

Clip from the Film — Still from the Film

Last night I attended the VIFF premiere of a new movie called “The Architect”. I wanted to see a light comedy after the heaviness of the last several movies. Something with a design element to it. The Architect was reminiscent of “The Cable Guy” starring Jim Carrey but only in the sense that the architect (played by James Frain) was annoyingly cloying in his attempt to help out, thus getting on the nerves of his employers as he tries to infiltrate their lives.

The movie was written and directed by Jonathan Parker who was in attendance to answer questions from the audience as was one of the main characters, Eric McCormack (Will & Grace, Broadway, etc.) Parker Posey plays his wife in this bizarre tale of obsession and deceit when a couple (played by McCormack & Posey) hire a supposedly top notch visionary architect to build their dream house right after buying a tear-down. But what they’re not prepared for is the architect’s brash ego informing them to follow his own designs and desires. The wife, a creative type of her own, gets swept up by the architect as creative designer – a stark contrast to her husband’s very practical side. A husband by the way, quite skeptical of the intentions of the architect in question.

You begin to realize who the dream house really belongs to – The Architect.

What’s funny is that Eric McCormack (originally from Vancouver) is building a home here and his own architect was at the screening. He pointed him out in the audience at the Vancouver Playhouse. He said if that wasn’t enough he also hired an interior designer.

Some lines from the film:

I don’t know why people hire architects and then tell them what to do

I believe it is just as important to design a chicken coup as it is to design a cathedral