Film Review – A Master Builder

Ever since he won an Academy Award for directing “The Silence of the Lambs,” Jonathan Demme has attempted to derail expectations by selecting material that feeds his moviemaking soul, mostly avoiding industry temptations to recycle his winning formula. His idiosyncrasy has remained in full bloom, with the last decade of his career spent making concert documentaries with Neil Young and testing out the elasticity of digital cinema with efforts such as “Rachel Getting Married.” “A Master Builder” merges the two aesthetics in a manner that’s sure to polarize audiences, asking viewers to be patient with this adaptation of a 19th century play by Henrik Ibsen, which never leaves its single setting, remaining stagey, breathless, and unavoidably static when it isn’t absolutely riveting. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com