It doesn’t open here until Friday, December 15th (at Landmark’s Century Centre), but we’re looking forward to seeing The Architect, a new film set in Chicago. Anthony LaPaglia stars as an architect who idealistically designed urban public housing projects that have since become notorious breeding grounds for drugs and violent crime. Viola Davis plays a woman struggling to raise her family in the projects, but the death of one of her children prompts her to start a campaign to have the oppressive buildings torn down and replaced with more livable architecture. She seeks out LaPaglia’s character, who lives in an insular and affluent Chicago suburb, to convince him that tearing down his design is the best way to build the community up.
The film was originally a play set in Glasgow but was adapted for Chicago, where our public housing program is currently undergoing the kind of Plan for Transformation that Davis’ character probably had in mind. The buildings are coming down, but it’s still too early to tell if we’ll have a Hollywood ending. Check out the trailer for The Architect, and see it for yourself to decide if it’s an accurate portrayal of our public housing dilemma.