Review: The Brutalist (2024)

The Brutalist is mountain of a movie, the kind of film that feels as if it might have been made in 1969, or 1974, or some distant, mythical Hollywood of the past when the scales that balance art and commerce weren't quite as tilted toward the superficial. Furthermore, since it was shot on 16mm and 35mm film, it very well could have been made in another time. The Brutalist is a study in humanity that's meditative and pondering, inhabited by flawed-yet-relatable characters who quite often do things against their best interests. The film is ambitious, inspiring, funny, frustrating, and occasionally even tedious, but never boring. 

The Brutalist follows László Tóth, a Hungarian Holocaust survivor (Adrien Brody), as he seeks refuge in America after World War II, eventually finding work as an architect in brutalist style, which showcases the structure of the object itself, exposing the materials of construction. Rather than overload us with exposition, the movie allows us to discover who he is over the entire course of the film, with some of his motivations  obscured until the final moments of the story. László's wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) arrives mid-way into the narrative, afflicted with injuries both physical and mental, changing the tone and sending us into a new direction. Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce) is a complicated Pennsylvania millionaire who hires László to build a community center that will be both a vanity project for the Van Burens and the centerpiece of a town that doesn't want it. 

The Brutalist is a story of immigrants in America, not unlike Coppola's Godfather films. That may sound like too lofty a comparison, but I think it's warranted, just as I think The Brutalist transcends genre and becomes an important observation on the American dream. It has things to say about capitalism, nationalism, industry, class, and art. Its characters are painted in complicated brush strokes; László is a talented man who does terrible things. He's a drug-addicted philanderer, yet a sympathetic survivor, who creates beautiful art. America offers him the chance for a fresh start, but also presents many pitfalls and dangers, some of which he does not avoid. Those around him are equally complex and fleshed-out, with their ambition coexisting alongside their own flaws and frailties. They're speeding ahead into the future, a metaphor that the film itself frequently reinforces with first-person perspective of trains, buses, and cars careening forward at a breakneck speed. 

The Brutalist is an astonishing and surprising film. It frequently deviates from expected directions, taking us to places we cannot see coming. It's directed with a unique visual style and flair that signals the arrival of a new auteur in filmmaker Brady Corbet, who gives us a movie that doesn't look, sound, or feel like anything else. The VistaVision cinematography feels timeless, even when it is unconventional, such as our first glimpse of the Statue of Liberty, which we view upside down. The score by Daniel Blumberg is built around an overture that can best be summarized as an industrial, droning refrain that repeats over and over again. It somehow conveys power, progress, and danger at the same time. The film runs 3 hours and 34 minutes and includes an intermission, another nod to the large-scale movies of the past. The fact that Corbet was able to do all of this on a budget of 10 million dollars is yet another achievement, showcasing what can be accomplished with careful planning and smart use of resources. 

Like many great films, much of The Brutalist is open to interpretation. What I get from it may not be what you get from it, and fans will likely debate the meaning of certain scenes, or even the entire epilogue that finishes the film. But this is a strength, not a weakness. In challenging the audience with the unexpected, The Brutalist achieves the potential of all art: to inspire continued analysis while reflecting the multitudes of its makers.