In America, an Immigrant Architect Builds His Future

Adrian Brody and Felicity Jones in 
"The Brutalist"
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

Period dramas, especially historical ones, have transported audiences for decades to times and places that offer a richness in what they could teach us about the past.  Whether the story takes place over a couple of years or several, these types of stories make the histories of these eras come alive in the details of the set designs, the knowledge behind the screenplay, and the cast members who study their roles to invest audiences in their true-to-life portrayals.  However, there are times when a movie will approach the past from a historical-fiction perspective, constructing made-up, yet fascinating events that allow us to view history through a new lens.

Director Brady Corbet does this as a mammoth filmmaking accomplishment with his epic drama, “The Brutalist.”  Boasting emotional performances, a captivating story, and a sense of scale that can only truly be experienced on a big screen, Corbet gives us a cinematic journey that feels like a one-of-a-kind movie.

László Tóth (Adrian Brody) is a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and immigrates to the United States.  When a wealthy client, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), offers László the chance to oversee a massive construction project, he will face events that’ll alter his views on what it means to pursue the American dream.

Similar to what Brody did with his performance in 2002’s “The Pianist,” he brings to life a character who uses his talents to overcome the horrors of what he has experienced, making this a galvanizing performance that belongs in the epic scope of the film.  Brody has an ability to go between the sadness of the toll that his character’s past has on him, but also the ambition of wanting to make something of himself in a country that might not want him.  As Brody shows the increasing resilience of what László wishes to achieve, it all makes for an inspiring performance in the middle of the intense heartache that he continues to face.  Brody pours so much emotion into this role, whether it be the love for his family or his dedication to his work, and he leaves it all out there in order to depict a character who wants to do anything to make sure that people see his talent.

Pearce gives a terrific performance as a man who seems like he has László’s best interests in mind, but proves otherwise later on.  He does superb work in making you feel the trust that László feels as he starts working with him, seeming like his life is now on the right track.  However, as the movie goes forward, the self-interest that Pearce exemplifies has you tense up as you wait to see how he’ll interact with László as their collaboration slowly becomes more strained.

Felicity Jones is absolutely engaging as László’s wife, Erzsébet.  Despite her character having a soft personality, Jones brings across the assertiveness that Erzébet needs in order to defend László when his goals begin to crumble and those around him begin to doubt or take advantage of him.  Jones exhibits Erzsébet’s ability to put herself forward as someone who, just like her husband, has to show that she belongs in America and has the work ethic to make her dreams become a reality.

Other great supporting performances come from Joe Alwyn as Harrison’s son, Harry; Raffey Cassidy as László’s mute niece, Zsófia; and Alessandro Nivola as László’s cousin, Attila.  All three of them make the most of their screen time in this massive film, making sure you remember them amongst the three central performances as they make their impact on László’s life.

The screenplay by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold (his frequent writing partner) is broken up into two parts and an epilogue, with the first part focusing on Laszlo’s arrival and project planning, the second part focusing on the construction of the project, and the epilogue focusing on the culmination of his career.  Through this, we get a complex and engrossing view into the two halves of Laszlo’s dream: the beginnings of his contributions to his new homeland, and what becomes of it as everything starts to progress.  Although László Tóth wasn’t a real person, the detail that Corbet and Fastvold put towards his character and story against the historical backdrop very much makes him seem someone who’s a real-life and larger-than-life figure.  The screenwriting duo offers both a gripping look into László’s strive for greatness and a fascinating look into the facets of architecture.  We see László through his personal and professional lives, leaving you absorbed in how they play out separately and how they eventually collide.

I was lucky enough to experience this movie on the IMAX format, and if it’s available on such a format near you, I couldn’t recommend more that you see the movie on that type of screen.  Corbet re-teams with Lol Crawley, who provided the camerawork for Corbet’s other two films, “Vox Lux” and “The Childhood of a Leader.”  With Crawley’s absolutely majestic cinematography, we experience America through the eyes of László.  Aside from the gargantuan imagery that we see in the different settings, Crawley also uses many single takes that allow the drama to unfold at a steady rate as the camera follows the actions and conversations of the characters, immersing us in both the people and the places that they inhabit.  Two fine examples of this is one of the first scenes that has the camera follow László as his ship approaches Ellis Island and he walks from the steerage level to the upper decks, all while walking through a claustrophobia-inducing crowd of people, leading him to outside as he gazes upon the Statue of Liberty for the first time.  The other instance is a climactic dinner scene near the end of the film, of which I don’t want to give much away.  These are two of the most memorable scenes of not just of the film, but of any film in 2024.

This is Corbet’s first movie in six years since his 2018 drama “Vox Lux,” and you can see all of the dedication that he’s put into making sure every ounce of his vision is shown to moviegoers. While “Vox Lux” wasn’t great in terms of its story, Corbet proved himself to be inventive with his visuals, and that ability is seen tenfold in this film.  Also, despite this movie being a sprawling period piece, Corbet crafts the movie in such a way that seems to make it glide smoothly along to the point where you don’t even feel the movie’s three-and-a-half-hour length.  He prevents this from becoming a typical Oscar-bait movie and instead uses his camera to create imagery that can be either beautiful or tense, finding inventive and occasionally thrilling ways to visualize the story.  Throughout all of this, he uses a score by Daniel Blumberg that can be triumphant in some scenes and eerie in others, evoking feelings of both possibility and uncertainty as László experiences accomplishments and downturns.

Corbet gives us a towering achievement in film that makes the most of its narrative and technical canvases.  In a year full of cinematic skyscrapers, “The Brutalist” emerges as the tallest.

Grade: A