‘THE BRUTALIST’ An Intellectually Stimulating Work of Art With a Masterful Adrien Brody Turn

When Harrison Lee Van Buren Sr. (Guy Pearce) meets László Tóth (Adrien Brody), he remarks—almost accusingly—that their conversation is “intellectually stimulating.” Tóth, an accomplished architect forced to flee his home country after the horrors of WWII, reflects that his love for architecture boils down to the simplicity of its form: nothing but architecture, he asserts, can be better seen than described. A cube can only be understood when it is witnessed. Van Buren’s comment seems complimentary, yet an undercurrent of foreboding and judgment tinges what could be mistaken for flattery. Perhaps it’s that this self-made American millionaire finds himself taken aback by the poetic musings of a Hungarian Brutalist architect, his sympathies and biases toward post-war Europe swirling into a hazy stew of pity and otherness. To glimpse genius in the battered face of an immigrant startles Van Buren, who is, at his core, an opportunist with a taste for fine art but a habit of sponsoring little beyond his own vanity.

In The Brutalist, breakout writer-director Brady Corbet’s ambitious three-and-a-half-plus-hour American drama, this relationship serves as a lens through which to explore the conversation and tension between art and commerce, embodied by the Budapesti architect and Pennsylvanian business mogul. Corbet deepens the narrative by framing it within the immigrant experience, revealing how the imbalanced power dynamic between creator and patron only intensifies under the weight of displacement. All of is further complicated by the myth of bootstrapping one’s way into the American Dream, a false promise peeled away to reveal a seedy machine of exploitation wherein the wealthy always win on the backs of the hardworking masses. When tragedy strikes the working class, their misfortune is not even acknowledged with flowers, lest there be any presumption of guilt.

Tóth’s art mimics his life’s experience: brutal. Suggestive and hopeful, his architectural flourishes reach to the heavens while remaining starkly grounded in the industrialized realities of efficiencies and budget. Cement and high ceilings come to define his work. We only learn later in the picture that Tóth and his family – Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and orphaned niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy) – spent time interned at Dachau, but the weight of this horror is etched onto his face and his work – and even more deeply in his heart.

Brody infuses Tóth with intelligence and drive, characteristics that buckle against his self-destructive tendencies, tendencies that come sharply into focus amidst the humble beginnings of an opium addiction. His arrival in America is a mystifying whirlwind; a smattering of hope, pain, drug-fueled euphoria, acceptance, rejection, and admiration come to define his first days in the “land of opportunity”. He’s taken in by cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) and his catholic wife Audrey (Emma Laird), only to realize that in order to make it in America, their family has abandoned their real surname (replaced with the American standard “Miller”), converted to the local religion, and adopted the native tongue, scrubbing out any recognizable ties to their homeland like a deeply-set stain. Tóth’s unwillingness to mask his Hungarian identity further proves his difficulty and sets him on an collision course with forces greater than himself.

Corbet’s film reflects post-war America as a hackneyed story, a myth of equality and prosperity, where promise goes rotten and real freedom is a fairytale fabrication. Van Burren commissions Tóth to construct a towering elegy to his beloved deceased mother; a community center comprised of a library, gymnasium, and church on the top of a grassy knoll overlooking the quaint town of Boylston. Van Burren tells Tóth that money is of no object, but that rings as hollow as the chambers of Tóth’s proposed imposing construction. Men of great monetary value like to pretend that money is no object, a masturbatory masquerade to perhaps prove their distinction and personal renaissance. As logistical complexities and costs pile up, their relationship strains. Tóth is uncompromising in his vision. Van Burren’s commitment to the project is mercurial, as unpredictable as his sudden outbursts. Through Van Burren and Tóth, art and commerce are frequently at odds, until the later (quite literally) violates the former and it becomes clear what The Brutalist really means to say.

Provocative and intelligent, The Brutalist may prove an imposing proposition for most audiences: a near-four-hour drama about architecture and the immigrant experience? On paper, it doesn’t offer much mainstream appeal. But much like There Will Be Blood before it, Corbet has constructed a visionary film deconstructing one of the many myths America loves to tell about itself: the story of boundless opportunity, of a country where art, talent, and hard work can thrive unfettered by class or background. Corbet’s film peels back the facade of this myth, revealing that beneath America’s supposed embrace of artistry and “pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps” ideals, there’s a brutal system that demands conformity, rewards the powerful, and reduces immigrant ambition to a convenient cog in the machine of capitalist exploitation.

Completing Corbet’s vision is an embarrassment of talent, both in front of and behind the camera. Brody leads with a mesmerizing, best-in-class performance—staggering in its depth and dimension—that drives the compromised, even corrupted, heart of the film. Judy Becker’s meticulous and imposing production design lingers throughout, an ever-present force; Dávid Jancsó’s deft editing transforms this epic runtime into a seamless, absorbing experience that, against all odds, seems to fly by; Daniel Blumberg’s unexpected score intensifies the film’s tension and intrigue; and Lol Crawley’s industrial, claustrophobic cinematography pins us into his orbit, capturing the imprisoning weight of The Brutalist’s stark, gray world.

Striking an imposing balance between narrative subtlety and the unrestrained directness often associated with Eastern Europeans, Corbet holds up a mirror to our current zeitgeist: our relentless obsession with gaudiness, wealth, and power; our readiness to exorbitantly punish the less fortunate for their minor crimes and misdemeanors while excusing the wealthy their horrific injustices and gross breaches of all civility and lawfulness; and our scapegoating of hard-working immigrants as societal pariahs onto whom we project our darkest assumptions and worst fears. The Brutalist may be the year’s most tragically poignant film, a work that lays bare our history, our self-deception, and the darkest parts of ourselves in staggering, often haunting detail. It’s a relentless reflection of a country and its legacy – one that glorifies power and wealth while marginalizing the talented and vulnerable; a distressing parallel to the zeitgeist we find ourselves once again trapped in.

CONCLUSION: Brady Corbet’s ‘The Brutalist’ is a towering accomplishment, a profound exploration of the conversation and conflict between art and capitalism, elevated by outstanding performances and technical elements that bolster this intricately American told story. One of the year’s best.