Brady Corbet’s audacious decades-spanning epic (it clocks in around 3 hours, 45 minutes and includes a 15-minute intermission) is a stunner to behold, a meticulously crafted piece of cinematic finery that is filmed in glorious VistaVision and is something you gawk at in the same manner that a tourist does when seeing Brutalist architect Le Corbusier’s influential, iconic structure “Unité d’Habitation” in France for the first time.
A key contrast, however, is that the work of Cobert is far more approachable and inviting than the often impenetrable and stoic lines that defined the Brutalist style that arose in the 1950s. There’s a reason why it won a Golden Globe Award for best motion picture.
Cobert started out as an actor and then vociferously burst out as a filmmaker with 2015’s bracing “The Childhood of a Leader” and followed up that passionate feature with the ambitious “Vox Lux.” He and his co-screenwriter Mona Fastvold — his partner and an actor and director — resolve the indifference some might have over Brutalism architecture by pouring a rich, dense narrative foundation that re-creates the brutal realities that one Hungarian Jewish immigrant family confronts during the late ‘40s and ‘50s. But the film doubles as a metaphorical statement about the barrage of assaults creative types endure as they stick to their artistic convictions while the the fat-cats around them threaten to chip away at their vision and their sanity.
In essence, Corbet’s ambitious saga, one of the best movies of 2024, is a lament about Hollywood’s corporate mentality as well as a damning, topical look at the post-World War II American Dream and how why it remained out of reach for so many refugees seeking a better way of life after fleeing tyranny.
Corbet’s film operates on multiple levels, but its success derives not just from its writing and direction but its cast and the various artisans who contributed in making a less than $10 million drama look like a mammoth $150 million spectacle. It’s truly remarkable what they constructed on such a limited budget.
SAG Award nominee Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce provide much of the acting fireworks. Golden Globe winner Brody delivers his best performance since his 2003 Oscar-winning tour de force as composer/Holocaust survivor Wladyslaw Szpilman in Roman Polanski’s “The Pianist.” Portraying Hungarian architect László Tóth marked another demanding challenge and Brody is more than equal to vthe task, conveying the torment of a flawed man and even nailing the occasions in which he speaks Hungarian.
László is renowned for his architecture designs, but encounters creative roadblocks once he arrives in Philadelphia. His wife, the traumatized but resilient Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), and niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy) join him later. Initially, László stays with his furniture store owner cousin Atilla (Alessandro Nivola) and his wife. He eventually lands a design gig to renovate the library of wealthy entrepreneur Harrison Lee Van Buren (Pearce), a short-fused momma’s boy with two adult children (Joe Alwyn and Stacy Martin). The redesign catches the attention of others and after a big dustup between László and Lee, a deal is struck for László to design a huge monolithic-looking institute dedicated to Lee’s mom on land next to the family estate.
It becomes a deal with the devil with the dandy Lee, portrayed with charm and venom by Pearce, demanding more than a pound of flesh from a man he views as inferior to him. Their tangled relationship becomes more volatile as the building progresses.
The performances are all skilled, but so is everything else associated with the film, from the exacting production design from Judy Becker to the evocative cinematography from Lol Crawley and on to the distinctive score from Daniel Blumberg.
Every piece of the architectural design of “The Brutalist” fits so perfectly into Corbet’s vision, a sprawling yet intimate story that leaps forward to the ‘80s and even has the moxie to flip the philosophical switch on a famous Ralph Waldo Emerson quote about journeys versus destinations. “The Brutalist” is bold like that.
Contact Randy Myers at soitsrandy@gmail.com.
‘THE BRUTALIST’
4 stars out of 4
Rating: R (strong sexual content, graphic nudity, rape, drug use, language)
Cast: Adrien Body, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy
Director: Brady Corbet
Running time: 3 hours, 45 minutes, with 15-minute intermission
When & where: In theaters Jan. 10.