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A Master Builder Photos

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Movie Info

A young woman (Lisa Joyce) confronts a gravely ill architect (Wallace Shawn), claiming that he seduced her when she was just an adolescent, but he has no recollection of the encounter.

Genre:

drama
Original Language:

English
Director:

Jonathan Demme
Producer:

Rocco Caruso, Andre Gregory, Wallace Shawn
Writer:

Wallace Shawn
Release Date (Streaming):

Mar 17, 2017
Box Office (Gross USA):

$46.9K
Runtime:

2h 7m
Production Co:

Westward Productions

Cast & Crew

Wallace Shawn
Halvard Solness

Andre Gregory
Brovik

Julie Hagerty
Aline

Lisa Joyce
Hilda Wangel

Emily Cass McDonnell
Kaia Fosli

Jeff Biehl
Ragnar

Show all Cast & Crew

News & Interviews for A Master Builder

Critics Consensus: Hercules is Mighty Fun

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Critic Reviews for A Master Builder

All Critics (33) | Top Critics (17) | Fresh (27) | Rotten (6)

There is muscle and volume in the performances; but had Demme hung back, and kept things cooler and quieter, the mastery of what Ibsen built, and the agon of his extraordinary hero, would have cast a more looming shadow.

September 22, 2014 | Full Review…

Anthony Lane
New Yorker
For a movie that lasts longer than two hours and is made up solely of talking, it's impressive that the story never seems to drag.

September 18, 2014 | Rating: 2.5/4 | Full Review…

Stephanie Merry
Washington Post
Filmed theater? Absolutely, but also, to my complete surprise, something else again.

September 15, 2014 | Full Review…

Jonathan Romney
Film Comment Magazine
Though the film makes little effort to open up the play, letting it all unfold, as in the original, within Solness's house - if not his mind - Demme's version intensifies the drama into something oneiric.

September 12, 2014 | Full Review…

Peter Keough
Boston Globe
Surprisingly engaging ...

September 4, 2014 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Kristin Tillotson
Minneapolis Star Tribune
A film that plays not as a theatrical antique, but as a crackling, profound entry in The Twilight Zone.

August 14, 2014 | Rating: A | Full Review…

Michael Sragow
Orange County Register
Though not as celebrated as the previous efforts of Shawn and Gregory, it's a notable title, at last made worthy of reconsideration following its paltry release.

October 27, 2020 | Rating: 3/5 | Full Review…

Nicholas Bell
IONCINEMA.com
The film's themes of guilt shine through, but the flawed final product makes A Master Builder frustrating to watch.

June 18, 2019 | Rating: 5.7/10 | Full Review…

C.J. Prince
Way Too Indie
Hagerty and Joyce are revelations; the beating hearts of the film.

December 28, 2018 | Rating: 7/10 | Full Review…

Nathanael Hood
The Retro Set
[Jonathan] Demme sadly recognizes that the creative urge can't be extricated from sexual urges. Yet in the end, the performances are stronger than the film that contains them, as if art cannot come to grips with this conundrum.

August 31, 2018 | Full Review…

Pat Padua
Spectrum Culture
If A Master Builder marks the weakest of the three Shawn-Gregory cinematic collaborations, the elegiac tone makes it a fitting conclusion.

August 22, 2017 | Full Review…

Kathy Fennessy
The Stranger (Seattle, WA)
even if it doesn't always work perfectly, it is never anything less than engrossing and perplexing, usually in equal measure

July 14, 2015 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

James Kendrick
Q Network Film Desk