
- Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn
- January 24th 2025
- 215
- Brady Corbet
Adrien Brody plays an architect who flees Hungary after World War II and tries to build a new life for his family in America.
Brady Corbet’s three-and-a-half-hour drama The Brutalist is one of the top frontrunners this awards season. But what is it about and is it worth the time commitment?
This old-fashioned epic stars Adrien Brody as László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect who moves to America after World War II to try and build a new life for his family, who join him later.
After beginning his new U.S. life at his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola)’s furniture business, Tóth befriends wealthy industrialist Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce) and is commissioned to build a mammoth community centre by his Pennsylvania home.
The Brutalist is a bold and ambitious film with rich and complex themes such as the American Dream, capitalism and the treatment of immigrants.
It explores these big themes by focusing on the relationship between one immigrant family – László, his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and his niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy) – and one rich American one, the Van Burens, comprised of Harrison and his children Harry (Joe Alwyn) and Maggie (Stacy Martin).
The film is told in two parts, which are divided by a built-in 15-minute intermission, plus an epilogue.
The first half is more of a struggle as it feels long and slow as it is simply building the foundations for the drama to unfold in part two.
The second half is where the story really gets going – László is joined by Erzsébet and Zsófia, there are constant problems with the gigantic Brutalist build and his alliance with the Van Burens sours as a result.
This half is the most shocking and gripping but also the most frustrating because it is building towards a moment that does not play out in a gratifying way. The viewers don’t get the catharsis they deserve – they are just left with ambiguity and many questions.
The Brutalist is a film that sticks with you long after the credits roll. Although the ending of the second chapter is maddening and it doesn’t need to be 3.5 hours long, Corbet deserves respect and admiration for making an old-fashioned film on this scale in 33 days and for under £8 million. That is a mind-blowing achievement.
In cinemas from Friday 24th January
By Hannah Wales.
© Cover Media