The Brutalist is showing in cinemas nationwide from Friday, 24 January.
Brady Corbet’s 215-minute epic, The Brutalist, seems daunting given its runtime and heavy topics of trauma, capitalism, and the immigrant experience. Yet, like the greatest architectural feats, its various materials come together to create a work of breathtaking power. Blistering, soulful and utterly engrossing, The Brutalist is 2024’s finest film.
We open with a young woman, Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), who is being vocally interrogated. From her clothes and gaunt expression, we register immediately that she is a Holocaust survivor. This brief but gripping scene establishes the characters’ past hardships as we cut to Zsófia’s uncle, László Tóth (Adrien Brody), emerging from the darkness of a boat in 1947. Above him is an inverted Statue of Liberty, an architectural landmark synonymous with freedom and opportunity. The dolly cam footage and thunderous triumph of the music generate on-the-ground awe – the optimism after so much suffering is palpable. But, as the upside-down visual foreshadows, reality may not be so straightforward.
László, a Hungarian Jew, has immigrated to America, hoping to start a new life for himself, Zsófia, and his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), both of whom are still in Hungary. Once a celebrated architect best known for renovation, László’s experiences of the Holocaust have left him unstable. He longs to see his wife again, his one coping mechanism being a heroin addiction forced onto him while en route to America. Despite his efforts to build a living, Lászlo is soon shovelling coal in Philadelphia rather than designing buildings. This is partially due to a library construction gone south and the resulting fallout with his cousin and initial host (Alessandro Nivolo).
Years later, László’s talents are recognised by Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a wealthy industrialist with an appreciation for architecture. Harrison commissions László to create a community centre in honour of his late mother. In return, László gets shelter, a salary, and, at last, a means of bringing his family to America. However, this newfound success only demonstrates the falsehoods of the American Dream, with László’s shaky mentality gradually collapsing as the truth of this rises into view like the concrete pillars of his designs.
During the film’s second half, László scrutinises the plans for the community centre, arguing that he essentially needs to harmonise four buildings into one. It’s an acute observation that feeds into the core themes of the film. America was founded on the harmonising of thousands of immigrants, all with the same hope as László, into one nation, albeit at the genocidal expense of Native Americans. In a sea of trauma, especially one as vast as the Holocaust’s aftermath, hope for a better life is all one can cling to. The American Dream is built on the foundations of this hope, its allure all-encompassing for László as his desire for legacy and security meet in this strange new land.
In his greatest performance since The Pianist, Brody captures László as a sharp, if somewhat arrogant, visionary caught between his grand ambitions and his declining mental health. He’s a fascinating protagonist whose complicated inner turmoil informs his decisions and leaves us on tenterhooks. Despite delivering highly-charged explanations of his designs, Brody’s eyes give away how broken László is underneath. He’s a man so desperate to overcome his trauma and achieve the American Dream, whether for himself or for his family, that he can’t recognise the fallacies of this dream even as they stare him in the face.
Where The Brutalist easily could’ve been a hedonistic ode to American exceptionalism, Corbet instead argues that the American Dream is an unattainable promise due to the interference of capitalist greed, where already ultra-wealthy forces commodify cultural art purely for profit. If Erzébet (a career-best Felicity Jones) is the angel on László’s shoulder nurturing his creativity and morality, then Harrison is the devil of avarice, an antagonist whose conduct signifies how mute the American Dream is rendered when the elite hoard its spoils, a timely observation given the political ascensions of Donald Trump and Elon Musk. A parasite that leeches off of working-class labour – who sees immigrants as disposable pawns for his grandiose delusions – Pearce’s performance is marvellously duplicitous, his charismatic sycophancy masking the aggressive entitlement. That his children are named Harry and Maggie (after himself and his late mother Margaret) is an early indicator of his skyscraping conceitedness. Under Harrison, László has not found freedom – he has simply traded one form of fascism for another.
The Brutalist would be a compelling companion piece to 2014’s Nightcrawler or 2020’s Minari, both riveting films that are also about the American Dream’s deceits. Daniel Blumberg’s score reflects these deceptions stunningly. The crescendoing highs of brass instruments echo triumph and wonder, while the string instruments of the second half capture a sense of pessimism in the declination that occurs. Cinematographer Lol Crawley, who previously worked with Corbet on Vox Lux, captures the process of human creation in exquisite detail, the clashing of light and shadow painting the battle that rages inside László’s mind as much as the walls of the opulent setpieces. Dolly camera techniques and handheld footage ground the spectacle in authenticity as the striking use of colour – particularly the dark concrete greys associated with brutalist architecture – transfixes our gaze throughout. Corbet’s direction continually expresses compassion for the immigrant experience at the heart of the story. For as heavy as the film’s thematic resonance can be, it is empathy for the proletariat and awe at the human side of creation – namely, how we can transform our worst experiences into something beautiful – that keeps the movie so absorbing.
That this rich tapestry never once gets dull is as astonishing as anything else in the picture. Structured via an overture, two parts and an epilogue, with a 15-minute intermission, the film strikes a delicate balance. It takes its time with its storytelling yet feels electric in pacing. Its two halves of construction and deconstruction, respectively, fly by so quickly that the intermission, despite its symbolic significance, is arguably unnecessary.
If anything, The Brutalist would have benefitted from being a shade longer, its epilogue feeling somewhat abrupt after a harrowing crisis point in László’s character arc. Yet it still manages to powerfully stick the landing as a rejection of ego, xenophobia and capitalistic rapacity in favour of solidarity and evolution, Corbet directing our perceptions of significance just as László does with his designs. The ultimate reveal as to why László’s designs for the community centre are so brutalist is one of such stunning poignancy that this critic dares not spoil it.
Similar to the work of masters like Charles Rennie Mackintosh, The Brutalist is a work that mesmerises with its intricate but gorgeous craft, every component brimming with meaning. A monumental achievement in filmmaking, its titanic performances and visionary direction are matched only by the conviction of its themes and tenderness for the immigrant story. When we consider the films that will be remembered from the 2020s years from now, a few titles already spring to mind: Aftersun, The Banshees of Inisherin, The Worst Person in the World, to name a few. The Brutalist will stand alongside those titles, enduring throughout the years like steel.
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