We have a new American epic on our hands.
At three-a-half-hours long, director Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist is a cinematic allegory for the American dream. It’s ambitious, beautifully shot, and is possibly Adrien Brody’s best work. There are so many elements of this film that shouldn’t gel together and that seem pretentious, but when seen onscreen, everything just clicks. It is a testament to brilliant filmmaking.
Brody plays Jewish–Hungarian architect László Tóth who at the start of the film has landed in New York. He travels down to Pennslyvania to settle with his acclimated cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), and his wife Audrey (Emma Laird). Though László tries to adapt to his new environment, constant reminders of his immigrant status keep the film from feeling at peace.
When Harry Lee Van Buren, one of Attila’s regular customers comes into the store to ask for his library to be redone, László goes to painstaking efforts to make the space perfect. When that goes awry, he is abandoned by his cousins and goes to work as a common construction worker. It isn’t until Harrison Van Buren, the former client’s father (Guy Pearce), comes back having discovered László’s past as a brilliant European architect and a Holocaust survivor that all is forgiven.
The relationship between these two accomplished men is the crux of this film, the push and pull between the renowned creative from a foreign land and the “self-made” man who is not as free-thinking as he portrays. When Harrison commissions László to build a community center in his dead mother’s honor, their dynamic escalates to traumatic heights, lasting decades. Though the project affords him the opportunity to bring his wife, Erzsébet (a stellar and worth-the-wait Felicity Jones) and niece over to the States, it comes almost at the cost of his marriage and sanity.
You are going to see the three-and-a-half-hour runtime and want to watch something else. When I tell you this film moves, I mean it. The pacing of The Brutalist is immaculate. There are shorter movies that have come out this year that don’t have the pacing or structure that this film has. It’s a breezy 215 minutes and only adds to the prestige of what Corbet has created. From the opening shot of the Statue of Liberty twisted upside down, you understand this is a different allegory than we’ve seen of the American dream.
Daniel Blumberg’s score is one of the year’s best and elevates every scene it is featured in. Part experimental jazz and synthed-out piano, the music feels both contemporary and of the mid-century period the film is set in. Lol Crawley’s cinematography and Dávid Jancsó complement one another beautifully. Corbet has curated brilliant artists to work on this film with him, including his co-writer Mona Fastvold. The story never misses a beat and keeps you entwined in the personal dynamics and ethics of the story.
Corbet’s crowning achievement, however, is Adrien Brody. He brings life and layers into a character who carries most of the story on his back. While Brody certainly has the skill and filmography, this is the most prestigious thing he’s done in years. His role is so specific yet he encapsulates the everyman beautifully. Brody breathes new life into the tragic American hero.
I hate to call this film Corbet’s Goodfellas or Schindler’s List because this is a work all its own. But The Brutalist is the kind of film that future filmmakers and actors will look back on with admiration and envy. Expect this one to win at least one statue at this year’s Oscars. And don’t listen to your gut when it comes to runtime. This one has to be experienced in theaters.
The Brutalist is open in theaters now via A24.
