Brady Corbet’s drama, written by him with Mona Fastvold, arrives here with almost universal critical acclaim following its release in the United States last year, along with 10 Oscar nominations. Adrien Brody stars as László Tóth, a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and emigrates to Philadelphia to pursue the American dream.
This hugely ambitious film runs over three and a half hours, thankfully, for my bladder, with an intermission. It is broken into two distinct parts plus a brief epilogue. For the most part, after an uninvolving opening few minutes, the first half works better. We see Tóth and his cousin designing and building a library for the wealthy Harrison Lee Van Buren and that is surprisingly riveting. Eventually, Van Buren hires Tóth to build a huge community centre. It is a project that will consume them both.
There are lulls, mostly in the second half, when László’s wife Erzsébet arrives from Hungary, though I was never bored and the run time seemed much shorter than it actually was. Ultimately, a lot of ideas and themes are explored inncluding how someone can be driven to the point of obsession, post-war prejudice in the United States against both Jews and foreigners in general and hidden, forbidden, desires. Almost all of it is done successfully.
I was not sure about the epilogue, set in 1980 when it started. But, it then delivers a total gut punch that explains why the architect was so desperate to complete his project.
What will probably have the most lasting impact on audiences, though, are the performances. Adrien Brody, in contention for his second Oscar, though likely to miss out to Timothée Chalamet, manages to portray László Tóth as a sympathetic figure even when he does terrible things. Guy Pearce plays Van Buren and he has never been better and Stacy Martin impresses as his daughter. Aside from Brody, the other thing that dominates proceedings is Daniel Blumberg’s portentous score.
I have a feeing The Brutalist will live long in the memory, its impact increasing with time.
Rating: 9 out of 10