[The Plumber is] a 76-minute Pinteresque black comedy, which at times is hysterically funny and at other times emotionally disturbing….

The Plumber is in some ways a more perfectly realized work than Weir's earlier, more ambitious films…. The brilliance of the film lies in taking [a] stock situation from domestic comedy, which would be farcical in the context of an I Love Lucy show, and transforming it into a desperate struggle for sanity and survival. (p. 17)

[The] ambiguity in the story greatly enriches its meaning. [Weir] consciously cultivates the reading of [Jill and Max's encounter] on many different levels—not merely as a sexual struggle between a swaggering macho bully and a timid, uptight woman, but also as a class struggle between the underprivileged working class and the snobbish, educated bourgeoisie; between the instinctive world of sexuality, improvisation, and charm and the academic world of reason, science and...