The Brutalist is something else entirely.
Before diving into this review, I want to talk about the setting in which I got to see the film. In order for the film to meet the requirements for Oscar consideration by the end of the 2024 calendar year, A24 released The Brutalist in 4 theaters: 2 in NY, 2 in LA.
I got a ticket for a matinee at Village East by Angelika. At the screening, we were also given a commemorative poster along with a pamphlet based on the center/monument that Adrien Brody's character Laszlo Toth designs in the film.
VistaVision has been relatively obsolete for the past 60 years. It had been popular during the 1950s when had been used by directors like Cecil B. DeMille for The Ten Commandments and Alfred Hitchcock for some of his most seminal works: North by Northwest and notably Vertigo, which is actually the only film until The Brutalist that I managed to see a 70mm screening of.
I certainly had reservations going into it. A 3+ hour film is a hard ask for anyone, but when done well, these longer films shouldn't feel like a slog to sit through.
The fact of the matter is that The Brutalist was actually fairly easy to sit through. I would even go as far as to say that when the film hit intermission, the first half had flown by and I was eager to proceed with the film rather than feeling uneasy about the next 1.5 hours ahead of me.
However - before I proceed...allow me to utilize a rather potentially crude analogy...
Let's say you are laying in bed. You have a man approaching you who is handsome and confident...and he has a rather prominent tentpole effect happening in his shorts.
You feel excited and eager and you are so ready for whatever comes next. After about an hour and half of passionate and glorious foreplay, you sort ease into a quiet sense of bliss before returning to finish the deed.
But then, he feels very emboldened and just wants to try so many different things, new things, strange things. It feels messy and meandering and as if he is tripping over his own erection.
And that, my dear readers, is The Brutalist.
I cannot begin to tell you what a jarring experience this film was for me. It isn't that the second half is necessarily horrible per se, but the first half of the film is dripping with style and passion and confidence and beauty to a point where one is practically in awe.
For a film that was over 3 hours long, I will say that it did fly by at an impressive rate What does shock me was that despite that lengthy running time...I felt the film was too rushed. You heard me right: I wanted The Brutalist to be even longer than its 215 minute running time.
The Brutalist begins in 1947 and lasts up until 1960 (with an epilogue occurring at a later date). The first half is titled:
PART 1: The Enigma of Arrival
It follows Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian-Jewish architect who immigrates to the United States following WWII. During the war, he was separated from his wife Erszebet (Felicity Jones) and his niece Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy) when they were put into different concentration camps. He is uncertain if either of them are still alive.
When he first arrives, he lives with his cousin who owns a furniture store outside of Philadelphia who offers him work at the store as well.
He eventually crosses paths with a wealthy industrialist named Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce), when he is asked to help renovate his study as a surprise by his son Harry (Joe Alwyn). While this doesn't go well at first, Harrison eventually realizes that Laszlo was a highly respected architect...granted it took until a magazine gushed about the study in an article for him to take notice...but Harrison owns up to that ignorance and wants to find a way to help out Laszlo.
He offers Laszlo a chance to stay in a guest house on his spacious Doylestown property and offers his lawyer to help with expediting the immigration of Erszebet and Zsofia to the states. Right near the end of Part 1, Harrison announces that he wants to build a huge community center to honor the death of his mother which would include a library, auditorium, gymnasium, and chapel. As if it were divine intervention, Harrison feels Laszlo was brought to him for the purpose of bringing this idea to life. And with that project beginning to form, it is announced that Erszebet and Zsofia are about to be en route to Pennsylvania when we reach...
We finally get to meet Erszebet and Zsofia, the former is in a wheelchair after having developed osteoporosis in the concentration camp, the latter is now mute.
This is when I would argue the film begins to take its descent into being a bit all over the place.
Harrison's lawyer comes to NY in search of Laszlo and lets him know that Harrison intends to forego the library as part of the center to cover the legal fees, which means that the project is back on. Erszebet is understandably frustrated with this development, but lets Laszlo go back to Doylestown.
I am going to end the basic synopsis for Part 2 here, because I am going to get more into SPOILER TERRITORY here while discussing the rest. I will put an "end spoilers" statement once I am done with this section.
There is a major shift in the plot that occurs when Harrison rapes Laszlo while they are on a trip to Italy to retrieve marble from a quarry. It is clearly meant to be a plot twist, but it also feels out of nowhere and I would argue that it seems to be there for shock value and doesn't add anything to the plot. In fact, something like this should have drastic ramifications and yet I feel the film glosses over all of them. We are even deprived the pay off of Laszlo confiding in Erszebet of the assault just so we can get a bit of a shock reveal that she is willing to confront Harrison about the rape in front of his family and dinner party guests.
Once Erszebet leaves, we realize that Harrison disappeared and a search is on to find him. While left a bit ambiguous, it is implied that he may have committed suicide.
It is with that scene that the film then cuts to its epilogue set in 1980. Laszlo is confined to a wheelchair and we learn that Erszebet had recently passed away.
He is being honored at an event in Venice for his buildings. We learn that the community center was finally completed a decade after the events of part 2, and his work was heavily inspired by his experiences during the Holocaust. An adult Zsofia gives the speech and ends it with a line he once said to her: "No matter what others try and sell you, it is the destination, not the journey".
In many ways, this quote feels very much in line with how I am responding to the film. The overall destination is rapturous and sweeping and it is hard to bash the film in many ways...and yet...I highly struggle with what Corbet/Fastvold did with Part 2.
I did make a point earlier to call out how I wanted The Brutalist to be longer. I don't want to say that Corbet/Fastvold bit off more than they could chew, but the film does suffer a bit from being simultaneously stuffed with plot and neglecting of substance once we return from intermission.
One major aspect of the plot I have not even mentioned yet is that Laszlo becomes a heroin addict, and this is something he shares with his friend Gordon, played by the luminous (and wasted in this role) Issach de Bankole. Like me sidestep for a moment to just state that a lot of the side characters in this film do feel fairly underdeveloped and how it does seem a bit harsh to have the film's only main character of color to be the one who shares Laszlo's heroin addiction.
The heroin addiction never really seems to be leading to anything until Laszlo decides to inject Erszebet with it when she runs out of her pain medication. Perhaps even more crazy is that despite being such a studious user of it, he gives her too much to the point that she nearly dies.
And before we know it, she recovers and the film doesn't speak of it again.
Storylines involving assault and drug addiction could lead to truly compelling and dramatic material, but it is almost as if Corbet/Fastvold wanted to fit all they could in the final hour to make it is crazy as possible. It makes the weight of such truly heinous acts as rape or the tragedy of nearly dying of an overdose feel a lot less heavy.
END OF SPOILERS
Dare I ask: what is The Brutalist trying to tell us? If we were to be completely surface level, it is a take on the American Dream and the struggle that it takes to try to achieve your goals. The final line talking about destinations and journeys ties into this, but I also feel like this journey was likely a lot more easygoing than similar people that may have the trajectory of someone like Laszlo.
The ending tries to tug at a sentimental string within us, but I am not so sure it lands as well as Corbet intended. It still feels like a lot of the emotions needed for it to land were sacrificed to go for the drastic plot shifts and dramatic tension that came with them.
Guy Pearce is an interesting case for me.
As a director, however, it is clear that Brady Corbet has what it takes to make a masterful film. What he accomplished with just a $10 million budget has been yet another talking point that has the industry buzzing, and I will gladly state that pretty much every directorial choice he made had me enthralled...and that his own script was what became the disservice.
The film's cinematography, by Lol Crawley, is nothing short of stunning. I think this is a clear Oscar winner unless they want to opt for Dune: Part Two. A lot of the driving/traveling shots, particularly the one used for the opening credits, seems so simple and yet very unique at the same time. It pulled me in combined, especially combined with the film's score.
Speaking of the score, by Daniel Blumberg, it was getting a lot of high praise from a lot of reviewers I had read. What I heard of it prior to seeing the film didn't truly stick out to me, I must admit. This is a clear example of how much a film score can truly add something to a film, because hearing this score within the confines of the film made me realize how truly epic it actually is. I now find myself thinking about a lot of it.
With that, I am going to wrap this review up...and I am left feeling enthralled and befuddled.
If I were to take just Part 1 and rank it for what it accomplished, it would be a much higher rating for Part 2...and yet, I still feel almost sad to give the whole film a lower rating for that reason.
I acknowledge when the film works, because its overall presentation is nothing short of stunning. It just suffers too much from the script, and I think that is where the problem truly lies...and it is hard to look past that when it comes to Part 2.
I am going to break down my final rating as follows:
The Brutalist
Rating 9.5/10
--
Part 2: The Hard Core of Beauty
Rating: 6/10
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Overall Rating for The Brutalist: 7.5/10
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A QUICK POSTMORTEM:
The overall film experience is worth your time, and if any of you reading this haven't seen the film actually do feel compelled to see it, I highly recommend going to check it out.
If anything, I would love to hear from you. I think that the Part 2 discourse could be come fodder among film buffs and critics in the years to come, so that is something I would love to hear your take on.
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