James Berardinelli review - *** out of ****

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From its start, The Brutalist feels like an epic. Available to theaters in 35mm and 70mm formats (in addition to the ubiquitous digital) with an intermission built into the prints, it bucks the current trend of taking long-form stories and streaming them. (If it was broken into pieces, it would easily fill four 52-minute episodes.) With its meticulous recreation of 20th century America and its focus on the stories of European immigrants, it echoes Once Upon a Time in America (although this film, unlike that one, is not about gangsters). One can’t help but admire writer/director Brady Corbet’s reach. The movie is not entirely successful, due in part to its at-times overt theatricality. The dialogue in particular can be problematic, sometimes being more florid than conversational – the kind of thing that might work on the written page but that can sound awkward when spoken aloud.

The Brutalist is divided into two parts (with an epilogue). The movie opens shortly after the conclusion of World War II. Hungarian-Jewish architect Laszlo Toth (Adrien Brody), a Holocaust survivor, arrives at Ellis Island. He learns that his wife, Erzsebet (Felicity Jones), has also survived the war and is overseas with his young niece, Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy). Laszlo travels to Philadelphia where his cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), runs a prosperous furniture business. He works with Attila to renovate the library of a local businessman, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), after Harrison’s son, Harry (Joe Alwyn), expresses a desire to “surprise” his father upon a return from his business trip. Harrison is indeed surprised…but not in a good way. Later, however, after he learns something of Laszlo’s past, Harrison seeks to make amends and commissions the architect to oversee a massive undertaking that is intended to define Harrison’s legacy. Meanwhile, Laszlo (with the help of Harrison’s connections), is able to bring Erzsebet and Zsofia to America to join him.

Corbet uses the familiar “rags-to-riches” trope as a skeleton for the movie but imbues it with deeper, darker shadows. From the early going, it becomes apparent that Laszlo’s status as a Jewish immigrant makes his pathway difficult. Attila’s wife, Audrey (Emma Laird), views Laszlo as an unwelcome visitor and fabricates a charge of sexual misconduct against him to force her husband to break with his cousin. All of Lazlo’s endeavors are obstructed by antisemitism – sometimes subtle, sometimes overt. Only Harrison seems unfazed by Laszlo’s Jewishness but the businessman struggles with his own demons that eventually emerge in a shocking fashion.

The film’s ending leaves much unresolved and, although there is an epilogue, it fails to answer a central question that will undoubtedly have viewers pondering and conjecturing. Corbet perhaps doesn’t see closure of this particular plot thread as necessary (or perhaps even desirable) since it is tangential to the overall arc of Laszlo’s life. Consequently, the epilogue (which transpires in 1980) is narrowly focused, providing only the bare minimum of details about events that have occurred during the previous quarter-century.

Although the term “brutalist” refers to the style of architecture that Laszlo practices, it also hints at some of the darker aspects of the story. Although a victim of the Holocaust in Europe and antisemitism in Pennsylvania, Laszlo is not presented as sympathetic. He’s moody, arrogant, and prone to violent outbursts. He is also a drug addict. By highlighting Laszlo’s unsavory characteristics alongside the brilliance of his vision, Corbet seeks and finds balance.

Laszlo is the only fully-formed character in The Brutalist. Everyone else, including Harrison and Erzsebet, fills a supporting role. Harrison is absent for lengthy stretches and Erzsebet (along with Zsofia) doesn’t make her first appearance until the movie is nearly half over. Ultimately, this is not their story; it’s Laszlo’s and their inclusion serves primarily to illuminate aspects of his personality. Actor Adrien Brody, who can do “brooding” as well as anyone in the industry today, makes Laszlo an unlikable individual who lives in the long shadow cast by events occurring prior to the movie’s start. We neither witness nor are presented with explicit descriptions of what he experienced during his time in a concentration camp but its impact reverberates throughout Brody’s performance, which is the best he has given since The Pianist.