When I first saw The Brutalist at the Toronto International Film Festival, I didn’t know what to think of it. It was undoubtedly well made, even one of the most masterfully crafted films of 2024. However, I struggled to connect with the story. This was primarily because I saw the film first thing in the morning and it was my second day in a row running on less than four hours of sleep. Needless to say, my body decided it was nap time during the screening. Given all of this, I believed the film deserved a second viewing before I give it a full review. So after four long months, I was finally able to rewatch The Brutalist. And after sitting through the three and a half hour long historical epic again, The Brutalist is undoubtedly one of the most meticulously crafted films of the year from its ambitious, bold, and masterfully story, till the final thirty minutes.
With an over three and a half hour runtime, The Brutalist is not for the weak. The Brutalist is an ambitious saga about the American Dream through the eyes of a troubled immigrant. Laszlo Toth (Adrian Brody), a renowned Hungarian-Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor makes his way to the United States after escaping postwar Europe. He is a ghost of his former self as he is broken from the horrors he faced during the War. When he comes to America to live his American Dream, his new life is greeted with a shot of the Statue of Liberty upside down, a sign that alludes hope and uncertainty. Upon his arrival, he soon finds out that his wife, Erzsebet (Felicity Jones) and niece (Raffey Cassidy) are alive but trapped in postwar Europe. With the only line of communication being through their letters narrated throughout the first half. While working side jobs with his Hungarian-American cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), he meets Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a wealthy industrialist who wishes to hire Laszlo to make a modern architectural masterpiece. What follows is a deconstruction of the American Dream, riddled with desperation, anguish, and self-destruction in the name of power and glory.
The Brutalist does not feel like it was made today’s filmmaking standards. It feels like a relic of a bygone era of filmmaking similar to the likes of The Godfather, Laurence of Arabia, and The Bridge on the River Kwai. Not only for the fact it was filmed on beautiful VistaVision, but for the ambitiousness of its size, scale and ideas that The Brutalist is juggling. Even if the film is not for you, you must admire the audacity that a film like The Brutalist can exist today. It has some of the most meticulously crafted and ornate filmmaking of this year. The cinematography was sweepingly beautiful. The score is powerful and thunderous, filled with the ideas of ambition and doubt. While the production and costume design immerse.
As for the acting, it has some of the best of this year. Adrian Brody, who hasn’t had the opportunity to deliver a performance like The Brutalist, since 2002’s The Pianist, is transformative and powerful. He is remarkable as a man broken by war, trying to rebuild his life who is still haunted by not only the demons of the war, but his own. Guy Pearce delivers not only one of his finest performances of his career, but of the year as Van Buren. He dominates the screen with his anger, power, and ambition. His transition from a smooth talking intelligent business man to a racist tyrant, truly captures the American Industrialist. However, it is with the introduction of Felicity Jones, Erzsebet, is when the film takes a thematic and cinematic turn that will either work for you or not, as her performance does stick out a little bit.
For Part One: The Enigma of Arrival, The Brutalist follows the stereotypically story of an immigrant following their American Dream. Laszlo slowly builds up his career in America, starting off with odd jobs and manual labor before he is hired to work on his masterpiece. Obviously his life is filled with ups and downs, littered with poverty and racism, but he makes his life work. Then as the film transitions to Part Two: The Hard Core of Beauty, the beauty of the American Dream is crumbled by reality. This brutal deconstruction of the American Dream is true to its core, and director Brady Corbet doesn’t hold back. However, with about thirty-ish minutes remaining in the film, The Brutalist takes a dramatic turn that leaves me puzzled and confused. Even now after watching it twice, I still do not understand what I am supposed to take away from the ending. It’s an ironically rushed ending that feels more in line with a different film than what Corbet set up. So, be prepared to witness a divisive ending that will be the chat of the town for your local cinephile group.
Overall, The Brutalist is a monumental achievement in filmmaking. This is creative and innovative filmmaking at its finest. Even if you do not like the film, you still have to respect its bold ambition to create something we haven’t seen for an age. However, its divisive ending will definitely be the talk of the town, especially in the coming weeks regarding the Oscar race. If you want to see something that feels like it is something from a bygone age, but also modern, I recommend The Brutalist.
My Rating: A-
P.S. It didn’t change my mind regarding Brutalism. That architectural style is still incredibly ugly.
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