Director: Brady Corbet
Cast: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaac de Bankolé, Alessandra Nivola
Screenplay: Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold
215 mins. Not Rated.

Okay, I’m going to tell you about a new A24 film, a nearly four-hour intimate epic with an overture and an intermission, all about an architect. No, this is not the biopic of Art Vandelay, the fictional character created by George Costanza (but one day we should discuss that as an idea). No, this is the new vision from writer/director Brady Corbet (Vox Lux). This is The Brutalist.

Following the Holocaust, Hungarian-born Jewish architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody, The Pianist) who has emigrated to America in search of safety, security, and a better life. While awaiting the arrival of his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) and niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy, Dark Shadows), he attempts to scrape his way to success with his architectural skills, and when he befriends a wealthy industrialist with a passion project, he finds that his perfectionism and need to prove lead him down a dangerous path.

It seems like a large portion of the discussion surrounding The Brutalist is linked to the run time (I get it, it’s all I thought about before seeing the film and a lot of what I’ve been thinking about since leaving the theater), but there are so many interesting elements at play with the release of this film that I think are worth noting. The Brutalist contains both an overture (though a very short one) and an intermission in the dead center. While this shouldn’t impact the overall film, it does affect the experience of watching a very lengthy film, and it’s why I’ve been preaching the return of the intermission for over a decade now. The overture is almost like a great title sequence, that little bit of music informing us of the tone of what we are about to witness, and the intermission was perfectly placed in the logical break between the first half and second half of the film. This allowed the audience at my screening to get up, stretch, and contemplate the very heady discussions of the characters. I haven’t felt this thrilled for the back half of a film in years. Would The Irishman have benefited from an intermission. What about Killers of the Flower Moon? Yes, to both. It made the movie-watching experience more palatable and, quite honestly, it helped with the pacing of The Brutalist. The night before seeing The Brutalist, I watched Red One, the new Dwayne Johnson Christmas movie. I only bring it up because my colleague and I were in agreement: The Brutalist felt like a much shorter film.

Adrien Brody’s portrayal of László is a classic immigrant story in some ways. His arrival is met with such excitement over America’s possibilities (the beginning of the film, showing the statue of liberty, is an excellent piece of filmmaking), but he also carries the shame of leaving others behind, a survivor’s guilt perhaps, and becomes a very self-persecuting man. His problems only exacerbate in the second half as he finds himself taken advantage of, leading to an angry altercation where he bluntly laments that “these people don’t want us here.” It’s an angry and sad realization of his American dreams crumbling before his very eyes. It’s a devastating character arc, and one that allows Brody a full range of his talents.

You could be asking yourself at this point: what actually happens that takes nearly four hours, and my answer is: I’m still not entirely sure. While it doesn’t feel like a short movie, it certainly didn’t feel it’s length. The Brutalist is very light on plot progression, and very heavy on character and moment. There are long stretches of quiet contemplation and more than a few lengthy conversations filled with poetic and stimulating discussion. Is it all necessary? Not for casual filmgoers, but Brady Corbet’s vision is not a casual film. It can’t be so easily consumed. It must be lived in, and while the length may turn some away, I feel like those interested in living in it will find a lot to take away. If anything, The Brutalist’s sin is that it is a lot of movie, and it’s about a lot of topics within one centralized narrative, but I found that all the more enticing as I pieced together my takeaways.

As stated, The Brutalist will not be for everyone. It has a tonal complexity that makes it a rewarding experience if you invest yourself. This is not a easy film to just pop on when you’re relaxing at home fiddling around on social media, but I think for those willing to invest in the necessary time, it’s a surprisingly emotional and thrilling experience of a singular man and his attempt to rebuild something for himself after he has everything taken away from him.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe