Brady Corbet’s films have a tendency to swing around a topical and/or shocking event in order to provoke a political, historical, or cultural conversation. Vox Lux, his previous film, basically opens with a school shooting and proceeds to track the fallout of that event through the pop star it ends up creating. Although I genuinely love that film, it is objectively a much messier effort than The Brutalist, a more formal piece of historical fiction which Corbet has described as his closest project yet to his heart and his family history. The most shocking event in this film happens well into its 4-hour runtime (presented with a 15-minute intermission), so I obviously won’t spoil it. Although this moment has the potential to turn off significant portions of any given audience, it is in keeping with the film’s attempts to subvert popular narratives about the immigrant experience in America while simultaneously giving a voice to true sacrifice and struggle.
Adrien Brody is magnificent as Hungarian-Jewish architect László Tóth. In 1947, he finds himself in Philadelphia after being forcibly separated from his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and their niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy) during World War II. When he first arrives, László is taken in by his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola), who lets him live and work in his furniture store. They’re soon hired by Harry Lee Van Buren (Joe Alwyn), the immensely privileged and pompous son of wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), to redesign and rebuild his father’s library as a nice surprise.
This seems like László’s dream job, and the redesign is beautiful, a precursor to the simple elegance of mid-century modern style. Harrison, however, is dumbfounded and furious when he unexpectedly returns home earlier than Harry had expected. Harrison then throws László and Attila out of his home, refuses to pay them, and in an act of cruel retribution, Attila throws László out of his store. Years later, László is working odd jobs in construction when Harrison finds him, apologizes, informs him that the library has become a huge hit within the architectural community, and finally pays him for his work. He also offers him a new job: designing and overseeing the building of a community center.
After the intermission, Harrison’s personal lawyer has been able to expedite Erzsébet and Zsófia’s immigration, and the family is finally reunited. As with almost every aspect of László’s life, however, things are not as rosy as he would like. All three carry trauma from what they went through before emigrating. In László’s case, he deals with this by taking heroin, an addiction established after being offered it to ease the pain of an injury. Erzsébet now has osteoporosis due to malnutrition, and Zsófia has gone mostly mute. Still, the three make do in Harrison’s guest house until the dream of the community center starts to present more problems than it might potentially solve. These issues involve, but are not limited to, materials, disputes over László’s modern design, and ongoing interpersonal strife between the shady Harrison and his star employee.
If all of these details seem like too much to take in, don’t worry. Corbet and his crew have done an exceptional job making such an epic tale totally digestible. The story moves in all the right ways: lengthier scenes are allowed to play out, but plot developments chug along at exactly the right clip. There’s not a moment to be bored here, despite the film’s unusual length. Because the themes of the piece are so well articulated without being spoon-fed to us, every bit of the plot feels like another part of the conversation rather than tacked-on bits of histrionics.
Even with Corbet’s direction and the camerawork by director of photography Lol Crawley being as strong as they are, the film’s artistic success still largely rests on the shoulders of its incredible ensemble. Brody is at the top of his form here, combining joy, intellect, and pathos all at once. Pearce and Jones are his equals, and the climax of the film involves a stunning showdown between them. Harrison likes to imply that those beneath him are somehow society’s leeches and takers, but we come to learn just how ironic his stance truly is. Through Pearce and Jones portraying this realization so clearly and precisely, we’re given a new perspective on so much of how our world is built.
An epilogue in Venice partly emphasizes the city’s iconic buildings. After all we’ve seen up to that point, this sequence seems to ask: on whose backs were those landmarks built? What was the human cost of such beauty? If we don’t know that, how much can we really know about the world around us, and how much can we truly appreciate it? | George Napper
The Brutalist was featured in the 2024 St. Louis International Film Festival (SLIFF). Further information about the Festival, which runs Nov. 7-17, is available from the festival website.
