The Brutalist (2024) Review

Every once in a while, an "epic" will stand out among the rest and cement itself as a truly great piece of art. It's a tough genre to get right, especially as a majority of them rely on different time periods, massive ensemble casts, and large sets to accompany them. This isn't to say that no one throws their hat in the ring, we get plenty of contenders every year, but achieving a great epic is a testament to the immense effort required.

All this to say, Brady Corbet's The Brutalist (2024) is a great epic. I hesitate to say I was reluctant to jump into this one, but I was. The three and a half hour runtime is daunting by itself, but combined with the fact that it is about an architect designing a building?... Needless to say, I wasn't exactly jumping into this one with the utmost enthusiasm. And oh, boy, what an asshole I am (this will become a common theme throughout these kinds of reviews, I often discredit films or shortchange them before actually having the experience). This film is a dramatic powerhouse that never drags, despite its runtime. It demands your attention.

The Brutalist follows Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian architect separated from his wife in post-war Europe, who flees to America to begin a new life. The film follows his entire life from this point, and you feel the weight of the experience building with the structures around him. I mentioned to my mother in passing (during one of many bathroom breaks) that it felt comparable to the legendary Ken Follett novel Pillars of the Earth, in that the story follows the lives of people concerning their connection with a great construction. Where the two split is in their focus; The Brutalist centers entirely on Laszlo's experience with a wealthy client who hires him to design a grand community center for a whole town.

The story spans about thirty years of Laszlo's adult life as he struggles to find his place in industrializing America as an immigrant. We see him arrive, fighting the language and cultural barriers at play to try and integrate into society. An early relationship between him and his estranged cousin establishes many of the hurdles Laszlo will face throughout his later life. We see the new world through an immigrant's eyes, and it's brutally honest, many times more brutal than anything else. I don't say that as a joke on the title (which apparently is a reference to the style of building in the film), there are a number of scenes in this film that don't flinch in their depictions of violence and abuse, of all kinds.

Where the film succeeds most is in its dramatic explosions, which are led not only by Adrian Brody's Laszlo, but also the wealthy client who hires him to build the brutalist monument to his name. Played with aggressive intensity by Guy Pearce (easily his best performance since Memento in 2000), Harrison Van Buren is a ruthless and very rich with heavy political connections who becomes obsessed with Laszlo's architectural work. Harrison has a number of moments throughout the story where he becomes dangerous, and not in the traditionally violent way (though in one instance, yes). His violence is centered on control and manipulation, as he seeks to ultimately dominate Laszlo, especially when there is competition between the two.

Without getting into any spoiler territory, the final hour or so of the film is tremendously dark. There are very few moments of light, in fact, quite the opposite, during an extended sequence including graphic sexual violence. Where, with a lot of films, I protest the use of graphic nudity, in this film it is used not as a way of indulgence but of genuine artistry.

Going off of that point, the strongest aspect of the film, and what the Academy justly gave acclaim, was the cinematography. Credit to the name, Lol Crawley took home the Oscar last week, and well deserved. From the opening credits sequence to the scenes of violence, each frame could be hung as a painting in an art museum. The highest compliment in my book for a cinematographer. From sweeping green vistas to dirty and dark tunnels illuminated by warm light; from bright sunlight over seas, to the brutality of nature's wrath, the scope of weather comes into play in the imagery and gives texture to specific moments.

If you haven't seen this film already, I cannot recommend it enough. It's very empathetic to the immigrant's experience overall, and presents a number of unifying themes with the relationships Laszlo has with those around him, whether nurturing or destructive. Especially given the runtime, I will be rewatching this sometime soon to ensure I didn't miss anything crucial. Watching this with a small bladder is a fruitless task, and the human brain is notorious for missing details, of which this piece of cinema is jam-packed with.