A few months back, I did a post on the movie A Delicate Balance. Based on a play by Edward Albee, the movie was released as part of a project called the American Film Theater that was designed to bring plays by prominent playwrights to the screen. I've actually got two more films on my DVR that were part of the American Film Theater that I haven't watched yet, but I was thinking of A Delicate Balance and the American Film Theater as I watched today's movie, A Master Builder.
Halvard Solness, played by Wallace Shawn, is the master builder in question, and as the movie opens he's sick enough that you wonder if he's going to die, as he's got a hospital bed in a front parlor and attended to by a team of nurses. Paying a professional visit is old friend Knut Brovik (André Gregory), who also worked for Solness. Knut's son Ragnar also works for Solness, and is good enough of an architect to go into business on his own if he could only have the professional success Solness seems to have denied him. This has also prevented Ragnar from getting married to his long-suffering fiancée Kaia, who is also Solness' bookkeeper. Halvard is married to Aline (Julie Hagerty), who seems to be so prim and proper that you wonder what she's hiding.
Into all of this comes young Hilde Wangel (Lisa Joyce). Apparently, Solness had designed a building for Hilde's father a decade earlier, which happened in a town some distance away. (Everybody has Norwegian names since the original play was written by Henrik Ibsen, but the opening credits are clearly in modern America as is the medical equipment, and Solness' location is referred to as "our city" instead of someplace specific.) Halvard kinda-sorta remembers the job, but doesn't really remember young Hilde, which is somewhat understandable since at the time of the job she was only 12 years old, and now she's all grown up.
But, Hilde claims that at the time Solness was working for her father, he told her that he was going to build her a castle and make her a princess and have her live in that castle. Now, as I was watching the movie I couldn't help but think of it as a bad thing in light of the "Me Too" movement, but since the movie came out before that and the play dates to the 1890s, that's not quite the focus of Hilde's presence here. Instead she seems to have believed Solness when he told her these things, and seems to expect him to make good on his pledge. Or, at least, she'll serve him to the point that of course he'll want to make her a princess.
The other surprise is that once Hilde shows up, Solness seems to make an incredible recovery, getting out of bed and moving around and even talking about taking a wreath and putting it on the tower of the new building that he's been working on. I found myself wondering how much of the action was really taking place and how much of all of this was a dream in Solness' mind. In any case, as the movie goes on, we learn that several of the characters, especially Halvard, have warts, and that Halvard and Aline haven't exactly had an easy life.
As I mentioned a few paragraphs back, this is based on a play by Henrik Ibsen, and the way the movie was directed (by Jonathan Demme of all people) makes it exceedingly clear that this is material originally for the stage and the limitations that the stage imposes. There is basically no effort to expand the material beyond a small number of rooms, much like A Delicate Balance. That, as a result, left me with some substantial problems with A Master Builder.
It's not that A Master Builder is a bad movie so much as it is the sort of material that even more than most films is decidedly not going to be for everybody. And it does have some good things going for it like Julie Hagerty's performance, which really surprised me since whenever I see her name in the credits I immediately think of Airplane! which, while a great movie, is definitely fluff. (According to IMDb today is her 70th birthday which is why I've scheduled the post for today.)
So, for the right person, you may very much enjoy the acting in A Master Builder.
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