Genre: Historic drama epic
Directed by: Brady Corbet
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I hestitated for a very long time before deciding to start this movie. I've always wanted to watch it becasuse I think Adrien Brody is one of the best actors of this generation. But seriously? Three fucking hours? In that time I could watch a standard-length horror movie, get a Thai massage, get some ink done and have time for coffee afterwards.
Now, the title of the film refers to the architecture style known as Brutalism whose features are exposed concrete/building materials, straight geometric shapes and bland colour pallettes - not anything to do with fighting or MMA.
So I'm torn - a three hour Adrien Brody movie just simply has to be the most epic movie in history. But a three hour movie about an architect - epic? Really? However, some time back when I was on holidays from work, I decided it's now or never - put my feet up, get a packed lunch, shut myself off from the world and hit play.
The plot:
The movie plays out in five parts - Overture, The Enigma Of Arrival, an intermission, The Hard Core Of Beauty and Epilogue: The First Architecture Biennale.
Adrien Brody plays Laszlo Toth, a Hungarian Jew who we see has escaped Europe, but without his wife or niece. Arriving in New York, he is processed and then jumps on a bus to Philadelphia to meet with his cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola) who runs a furniture and design store. Attila has Anglicised his surname, converted to Catholicism and married a Caucasian American, Audrey (Emma Laird). Letting Laszlo stay at a small room out the back of the showroom in return for his labour, Attila is soon approached by Harry Van Buren (Joe Alwyn) - the entitled son of wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren - to perform a surprise redesign to his father's reading room at the enormous mansion they reside in just outside of town.
Laszlo's blunt European attitude and creative genius sees him win the trust of both Van Buren and Attila, so they get to work redesigning and rebuilding the room (but not without some accidental damage along the way). Unfortunately, the elder Van Buren (Guy Pearce) returns home earlier than expected and is outraged, first at a black man being present on his grounds, and then that his beloved reading room has been totally disassembled without his knowledge. Attila, Laszlo and the crew are all sent away. Back at the showroom/home, Attila evicts Laszlo by blaming him for the fact that the Van Buren's won't pay for the redesign due to damage done to the Van Buren property during the renovation, as well as accusing him of attempting to seduce his wife.
Laszlo finds work at a construction site alongside Gordon (the black man that Van Buren accosted earlier on, played by Isaach De Bankole), but has picked up a heroin addiction that Gordon is aiding. One day while at work, the elder Van Buren appears and takes Toth out for a meal where he apologises for the non-payment and accusations of damage, but indicates that it was Harry who was behind that. The reason for the meal is that Van Buren actually liked Laszlo's work, found out that he is actually a world-class architect back in Europe and after a subsequent swanky dinner, commissions him to build a memorial building to his mother that serves as a community centre. At the dinner, Laszlo meets with Hoffman (Peter Polycarpou), Van Buren's personal attorney who promises to see what he can do about expediting the removal of Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and Zsofia (Rafey Cassidy) from war-torn Europe.
Work begins on the memorial where Laszlo's lives on site in the guest house and employs Gordon and his son.
After the intermission, we then get the second half of the story.
At a train station, Laszlo FINALLY reunites with his long-lost wife who now confined to a wheelchair as a result of osteoperosis, as well as his niece, Szofia who is selectively mute. They all go to inspect progress on the building site. We see Laszlo's genius conflict with the available budget and other constraints imposed by Leslie, the builder brought in by Van Buren to make the vision happen, to the point that Laszlo agrees to forfeit his remaining fee to make sure the building is made to his specification.
At a subsequent lunch, Harry makes disparaging remarks to Laszlo regarding the fact he is a foreigner, as well as indicating that he wants to make a move on Szofia.
A derailment of a train carrying materials for the project causes a delay and embarrassment, especially since the train that derailed was from Van Buren's own company. In his ensuing rage, Van Buren summarily dismisses everyone, much to Laszlo's chargrin who thinks Van Buren is being dismissive of the workers who are in hospital because of the project and that he should be looking after them.
We then see Laszlo working as a draftsman in New York City, as well as his wife working as a New York newspaper columnist, when Laszlo is approached by Hoffman. At family dinner that night, a pregnant Szofia and her husband Benyamin announce that they plan to move to Israel, enraging Laszlo and Erzsébet who soon calm down and apologise. Laszlo then announces that Van Buren has sorted out the legal issues from the train derailment and wishes to restart the memorial project.
Laszlo and Van Buren take a trip to Italy to inspect marble from Carrara with assistance from Orazio (Salvatore Sansone) who seems to have some shared war history with Laszlo. After sorting the purchase out, Orazio organises a party down in the mine. Laszlo, clearly affected by heroin, gets flirty with a pretty Italian woman, but then goes and lies down. Van Buren takes advantage of this opportunity to sexually assault Laszlo while making demeaning comments about Laszlo's ethnicity and position in life.
Back in America, Laszlo throws himself into his work as a way of handling the shame of what happened to him in Italy to the point that he yells at workers over minor infractions and summarily dismisses Gordon, his faithful friend - he is now what we might call a miserable son of a bitch. This is highlighted by an argument Laszlo and Erzsébet have in the car about how unwelcome immigrants are in America. That night, Erzsébet wakes up in sharp pain from her osteoperosis, but there isn't enough prescription medication available to effectively treat it so Laszlo gives her a shot of heroin. This leads to Laszlo and Erzsébet finally being able to have sex again, but also damn near kills her. In the hospital bed, Laszlo agrees with Erzsébet's plan to move to Jerusalem to be grandparents to Szofia's daughter.
In the final scene of this segment, we see Erzsébet, now able to walk with help from a frame, make an unannounced visit to the Van Buren mansion. Erzsébet tells everyone present at a dinner that Van Buren is an evil rapist which leads Harry to knock Erzsébet over in defending his father's honour, though Maggie (Harry's sister, played by Stacy Martin) helps Erzsébet back to her feet. In all the commotion, the elder Van Buren goes missing and isn't found despite everyone's best efforts.
In the closing chapter of the movie, Szofia and her daughter wheel in a now incapacitated Laszlo to an architectural conference celebrating Laszlo's work over the decades where Szofia gives a speech indicating that Laszlo designed the Van Buren centre to resemble the Buchenwald and Dachau camps where both he and his wife were held during WW2.
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Yikes! This movie encompasses some pretty heavy subject material - drug addiction, the persecution of Jews, the struggles of fitting in post-immigration, male-on-male sexual assault, and more.
It's a very deep story, and as a production, it is fantastic. A-plus. Top of the line. The movie was nominated for ten Oscar nominations and won three for Best Actor (Brody), Best Original Score and Best Cinematography - beaten out for Best Picture and Best Director by Sean Baker and Anora - so it's definitely a quality production. And no surprise Adrien Brody got Best Actor - he is one of the best in this generation - in fact, I can't think any other actor alive today that could do the role of Laszlo Toth any justice.
However, for as magnificent a production as this is and how deep and profound the story was, I found that the actual drama points are few and far between. This movie is certainly not an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride - it's slow in parts, jumps years at a time at some points, and if you've been involved with construction projects in any way, this movie may bring back horrible memories.
Which makes me wonder if The Brutalist needed to be three hours-something? I'm going to say no. And while this wasn't a book-to-movie adaptation, directors still need to be judicious about what is an isn't included in a film. I knocked points off of Anora for its pacing and spacing isues, and I'm going to knock points off this movie as well.
Some other observations:
The use of Hungarian - this is not a language that gets a run in western cinema, so whoever decided that Hungarian would be the main non-English language, props for the bravery! And on this matter, it turns out that AI was used in the ADR to really give life and depth to the Hungarian accent used by the actors. I'm not too bothered by this, personally - I mean, CGI is used all the time in big-budget films and no-one says a peep about that.
It's also good to see a level of sexuality between husband and wife on-screen. Something rarely seen in movies nowadays. And on that track, the fact that if there was sexual contact between Harry and Szofia, it was implied and not shown - a classy touch.
The heroin addiction storyline that plays out throughout the movie is an interesting one that adds to the struggle Toth is going through.
I had a chuckle when Audrey mentions Laszlo's nose. Adrien Brody's nose is quite a prominent feature at the best of times, and turns out that a make-up artist thought it was a prosthetic.
All up, The Brutalist is a magnificent film - a definite Best In Class. My final rating for this movie is 4.5, which is the result of points deductions for pacing.
STAR RATING: 4.5/5
