Anthony LaPaglia; an expert at playing the conflicted Everyman; notches another such character in The Architect; a low-budget adaptation of a play by David Greig. LaPaglia plays a Chicago architect; complacent in his teaching theories and obsessed with his scale models; who doesn't comprehend the effect of his designs on the people who actually live in his buildings. Case in point: an eighties-era housing project; now overrun by gangs; drugs; and despair. It's gotten so bad that resident Viola Davis (World Trade Center) is petitioning the city to tear the place down; and she's approached the architect about signing. Meanwhile; the movie ranges across the families of both characters; including LaPaglia's massively confused teenaged kids (Hayden Panettiere; Sebastian Stan); both of whom are trying on unfamiliar sexual roles. Isabella Rossellini plays LaPaglia's dazed wife; who straightens up the house in order to stave off the unhappiness of her marriage. In short; there's a lot going on here; too much for the brief running time of the movie; these people tend to have emblematic traits and not much else. Enlivened by actors; that kind of thing can work better on stage than in film; where the material feels skeletal. LaPaglia and Davis are in excellent form; however; and earn some of the power of the final moments. --Robert Horton