The Belly of an Architect

R

1987

1h 58m

Comedy

Drama

List

85%

13 Reviews

Tomatometer

80%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy), a driven, detail-obsessed architect, travels from America to Rome with his much younger wife, Louisa (Chloe Webb), to oversee an architectural homage to a personal hero, 18th-century master builder Etienne-Louis Boullée. En route by train, Stourley and Louisa conceive a much-wanted child -- but Stourley's obsession with his wife's expanding belly, her perceived infidelity, and his own recurrent bouts of abdominal pain reach epic and dangerous proportions.

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Audience Member

Absolute masterpiece from Peter Greenaway. A visual feast of style, music and visuals. Not to mention the plot which is very unique and original. The performance of Brian Dennehy is spot on perfect and brings a heightens up the sense of tragedy that permeates the film. Its Peter Greenaway at its best!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

02/25/23

Full Review

Audience Member

One of the greatest, the most beautiful and underrated films of all time.

Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars

02/11/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The thing about this is that, despite good performances, as far as I can see, it's a lot of nothing. Sure, it's more of a character study than linear story, but, even taking this into consideration, it still doesn't deliver anything that I think is really worth watching. There are some good ideas here, but that's all they are - ideas that never come to fruition.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/18/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I'd recommend this movie to the architects...

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

02/12/23

Full Review

Audience Member

A visually striking tale of obsession with a powerful performance by Dennehy, and the usual sexual flourishes from Greenaway.

Rated 4 out of 5 stars

02/05/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Peter Greenaway's artistic background reveals itself frame after frame in this taxing tragic drama. However, Greenaway's film isn't half as profound as the Roman legends it strives to revere in its shoddy screenplay. The film charts the neo-classical decline of obsessive architect, Brian Dennehy, mimicking the mopey hypochondria of the very master he's studying. Trouble is, not only is soppy Dennehy hard to take seriously, (with his fuzzy frowns and striking resemblance to Troll 2's Grandpa Seth), but Greenaway's casting-to-character-age ratio is horrendous, and his script is 80% age-gags and adultery. As you can imagine, this combined with atrocious acting is not ideal in a relationship drama which requires complete belief in its characters in order to work. The Belly of An Architect is a pretty picture of a movie; a real pretty picture. But no level of beauty can mask the fact that it features some of the worst flirting and faffing in the history of film. Poop with a painted gold coating; let's hope the lady playing Dennehy's 'much younger' missus was an unpaid intern.

Rated 2 out of 5 stars

02/14/23

Full Review

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Peter Greenaway

Director

Brian Dennehy

Stourley Kracklite

Chloe Webb

Louisa Kracklite

Lambert Wilson

Caspasian Speckler

Sergio Fantoni

Io Speckler

Stephania Cassini

Flavia Speckler

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Tom Meek

Cambridge Day

[Brian] Dennehy is outstanding as a man out of his element, and the cinematic rendering of Rome's classic structures is a visual feast.

Rated: 3/4

Apr 20, 2020

Full Review

Ángel Luis Inurria

El Pais (Spain)

Presumptuous, cold, and distant. [Full Review in Spanish]

Apr 3, 2020

Full Review

Cole Smithey

ColeSmithey.com

Rated: 4/5

Nov 30, 2007

Full Review

Rob Gonsalves

Rob's Movie Vault

Dennehy achieves Brando-esque emotional power.

Rated: B+

Apr 9, 2007

Full Review

Randy Shulman

Metro Weekly (Washington, DC)

Rated: 3/5

Jun 30, 2005

Full Review

Nick Davis

Nick's Flick Picks

There's a good deal here to relish, even if the piece as a whole eventually descends into the same hermetic serialism of motifs that has consumed most of Greenaway's pictures.

Rated: B

Aug 28, 2004

Full Review

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Synopsis

Stourley Kracklite (Brian Dennehy), a driven, detail-obsessed architect, travels from America to Rome with his much younger wife, Louisa (Chloe Webb), to oversee an architectural homage to a personal hero, 18th-century master builder Etienne-Louis Boullée. En route by train, Stourley and Louisa conceive a much-wanted child -- but Stourley's obsession with his wife's expanding belly, her perceived infidelity, and his own recurrent bouts of abdominal pain reach epic and dangerous proportions.

Director: Peter Greenaway
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Streaming): Apr 23, 2020
Box Office (Gross USA): $6.3K
Runtime: 1h 58m
Sound Mix: Surround

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