Directed By Brady Corbet

Starring – Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce

The Plot – When visionary architect László Toth (Brody) and his wife Erzsébet (Jones) flee Europe to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious and wealthy client. The seemingly-charming industrialist Harrison Van Buren (Pearce) offers László and his family the American Dream on a silver platter by commissioning him to design a grand modernist monument and help shape the landscape of the country he now calls home. It will be the most ambitious project of his career, one that will take László and Erzsébet to both monumental heights and devastating lows

Rated R for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, rape, drug use and some adult language.

The Brutalist | Official Trailer HD | A24

POSITIVES

As to where most immigrant stories depict America as this land of never-ending opportunity and optimism, Corbet shines an insightful light of awareness and responsibility towards the dark and haunting realities that many immigrants faced while seeking out better lives for themselves under a capitalist system. The film is told through the perspective of Brody’s Laszlo Toth, with little money and outlooking hope to his name, and throughout the exploration of nearly three-and-a-half gut-wrenching hours with the Jewish architect, uncovers not only the deep-seeded racism that lingers within the ideals of many upper class Americans who viewed their arrival as a means towards promoting bigger power plays of dominance, but also a story pertaining to structural legacy, which is seen here metaphorically in the architecture of Toth’s career objective, which alludes to America being built by those who sacrificed everything for their own slice of the prominent pie. Corbet’s epically entrancing scope and scale of vintage Vistavision 70mm photography promotes immersive accentuation and authenticity in the ways that many foreigners saw America for the first time, with a thunderously rampant and triumphant score from Daniel Blumberg underlining the handheld cinematography from Lol Crawley almost majestically, which makes the arrival during the opening minutes alongside the Statue of Liberty feel like the end of suffering, all in order to promote a false sense of security for Toth to finally let his guard down and get to work on building a life for his wife and niece, who remain in Europe until their legalization goes through. As expected with the dark and depressing depths of the narrative, these elements of production change with the expansion of the story, with the handheld photography of the first person perspective eventually giving way to meticulous camera placements, in order to convey an overwhelming vulnerability in unsettling tension within the many rooms and interactions that Toth’s journey takes him on, as well as the aforementioned score absorbing much of the dramatic downtrodden that surrounds his bleak desperation, towards much more somberly and stirring compositions that tap into the isolation factors and tragedy of the passage of time that has rarely since afforded him the kind of long-term comfort and stability necessary to call this place home. The film is performed exceptionally by each of the aforementioned decorated trio, even if this is definitely Brody’s vehicle to shine towards stealing another Oscar trophy. Brody’s evolution from timidly tepid stranger in a strange land to capably confident architect is his single greatest achievement for the film, with Laszlo’s previous demeanor weaving back into frame vividly with the ways that others are forced to see him, all without ever truly sacrificing the empathetic value to character that Brody lands so effortlessly against such overwhelming odds that continuously set out to break such a passionate spirit. Brody’s most sincere and intimate moments are those shared with Felicity Jones, as the two have such an undefined disconnect from their time apart that resonates in each of them learning to reconnect with one another, but it’s that physical longing and emotional withering that supplants such a naturalistic and lived-in appeal to their established chemistry that takes each of the performances miles as the film persists into the deeper and darker second half, where Jones commands more of the fiery intensity during some edge-of-the-seat confrontations. Despite such a limited screen time in the overall bigger picture of 215 minutes, Jones leaves such a lasting and irreplaceable presence of stoicism that essentially serves as the voice of reason to so many devious deeds being pushed under the table by Brody’s Toth, and as to where the third act climax transforms Brody in ways that are palpably tragic and traumatic to the audience, Jones’ resiliency remains firmly in tact, despite the air of her character’s design pertaining to such overwhelming vulnerability, granting us her most meaningful work since bursting onto the scene with 2014’s ‘The Theory of Everything’, where she also showed resounding courage and compassion as a loving wife to an intellectual genius. Then there’s Guy Pearce, who in a career filled with villainous roles, leaves his grandest work for the melodramatically detestable Harrison Van Buren, who Pearce elicits upper class narcissism and ignorance without coming across as a one-dimensional cartoon. What’s most appalling to Guy’s portrayal is that he has the ability to betray you, at just the moments you’re thinking that he’s changing for the better, and in everything from his disrespectful methods of communication to his selfish dismissing of other’s wants and needs, Pearce manifests the face of 20th century American greed without a single discernable trait towards humanity, cementing a realistically unforgiving antagonist that feels just as relevant in 2025 as it did in the sprawling time frame of this story.

NEGATIVES

As you can probably guess, the three-and-a-half hour run time isn’t the easiest to remain faithfully invested, regardless of Corbet’s entrancing direction and monumental scope enacting accessibility and relatability to such a personal story, as the depth of the exploration doesn’t quite come close to reaching the allowance given to the production. On one hand, it’s nice to have a film that matches the epics like ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ or ‘Schindler’s List’ that I grew up adoring, but when it comes at the cost of momentum within scenes, particularly during the second act, meandering for a bit longer than necessary, it’s not for the better, and presents the single biggest issue that mainstream audiences will have in attaching themselves to such a continuously dark and depressing story, despite an ending that hints at generational optimism. As mentioned, the second act is the section of the storytelling that feels a little too muddled and stuck in place to keep the exploration moving at a pace that isn’t exactly endearing or satisfying, and considering that this weaker section comes on the back of a fifteen minute intermission where the movie is quite literally paused in order to give audiences a bathroom break after the first hour of the movie, it grinds the momentum to a screeching halt at a time when it was starting to materialize towards something special, leaving the finished product feeling entirely self-indulgent in ways that don’t exactly add anything integral to the expansion of the storytelling. Beyond the overly ambitious run time, my only other notable issue with ‘The Brutalist’ was the ending, which felt a bit incomplete and abrupt, considering it hammers home the aforementioned lasting legacy of its protagonist, without us having a chance to taste his successes in real time. In a sense, I wish the flash forward to the aftershock of Laszlo’s legacy decades ahead was substituted with a resolution within the timeline of the unraveling narrative, as that section largely feels unfinished and underwhelming as a result of where we’re eventually left, which could definitely be the point of Corbet’s somberly uncompromising vision towards the immigrant story, but feels like a bit of a cop out for the characters who we grew to eventually attach ourselves to, leaving us a bittersweet ending that effectively musters meaning, but with an abrupt time jump to properly attain it.

OVERALL
‘The Brutalist’ is a poignantly provocative fable of the American dream, and one that Brady Corbet uses every square inch of this colossal undertaking to construct a strong and sturdy foundation of epic renderings that will undoubtedly stand the test of time. Between award-worthy performances from the trio of Brody, Jones and Pearce, technical mastery involving 70mm Vistavision visuals, and its harrowingly haunting brand of immigration struggles, the film cements itself as a front runner Oscars darling for this year’s ceremonies, with only a self-indulgent three-and-a-half-hour run time to slow its progress.

My Grade: 8.2 or B