‘The Brutalist’ Review: Adrien Brody Gives a Shattering Performance in the Cinematic Event of the Year | Venice

If Megalopolis were half decent, it might look a lot like The Brutalist. While this review solely focuses on the latter, the two films just have so much in common. Both center on fictional architects hailed as visionaries, and they share similarly mammoth scope and ambition, not to mention world premieres at the most prestigious festivals (Cannes and Venice) merely four months apart. With The Brutalist, actor-turned-director Brady Corbet has unintentionally given a masterclass on everything the maestro Francis Ford Coppola has fallen short on delivering. 

Spanning more than three decades and clocking in at a whopping three hours and 35 minutes – which includes a 15-minute intermission – The Brutalist is an audacious undertaking. The biographical and historical details are so richly meticulous that one can easily mistake this for a legit biopic – since no production notes or even stills have been supplied at this time, the film is credible enough to warrant extensive googling to confirm if it’s indeed a work of fiction. Then there’s the artistry in the craft. It looks as if the production has spared no expense. First, the vintage texture (it was screened at Venice in 70mm per other sources) has outdone maybe even that of Paul Thomas Anderson’s Licorice Pizza. The visual tapestry is so intricate yet expensive, one may even wonder whether special effects have been deftly deployed. 

The protagonist is László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian Jewish architect who emigrates to the United States in 1947. His arrival is an overwhelmingly poignant portrait of a time when immigrants are genuinely excited to set foot in the land of opportunity, something we haven’t seen depicted on film in ages. He proceeds to Philadelphia to stay and work at the furniture shop owned by his cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), who has changed his name and converted to Catholicism in a bid for assimilation. László’s wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), has stayed behind to protect her niece. 

Attila accepts a job converting a study into a library for Harry Lee Van Buren (Joe Alwyn) to surprise his super wealthy father, Harrison (Guy Pearce). The senior is aghast at László’s Brutalist design, prompting junior to stiff Attila on the bill. Attila soon sacks László and forces him to live in a homeless shelter and line up for the soup kitchen. Harrison tracks László down some time later, to make amends after his library gets showcased in a magazine. Not only that, Harrison opens up his home to László and commissions him to design a multipurpose community center in Doylestown, Penn., a project as enormous and daring as the film itself. 

László suddenly finds himself living the American dream, with a benefactor who has the wherewithal to bankroll his unfettered vision and the political and business connections to help Erzsébet move to the States and land work at a newspaper. But as foreshadowed, the whims of the Van Buren family can be both a blessing and a curse.  

Brody gives a shattering performance. Pick on his Hungarian accent all you want, he’s still lightyears superior to Adam Driver in the Coppola film. He provides the necessary soul and anchor of an at times unwieldy endeavor.    

It’s clear that Corbet and his crew have done laborious research on the history, the postwar immigrant experience, the design and the aesthetics. The art direction is so on point that the film looks like a European period production. Given how many critics waiting in line openly aired their ignorance on Brutalism as an artistic movement, one shudders to think how much of the film’s craftsmanship and attention to detail will go unappreciated. Same goes for Daniel Blumberg’s exquisite score, infused with melancholic piano and trumpet. 

That said, it’s almost the nature of the beast that an enterprise of this magnitude becomes unmanageable. While it’s clear that some of the subplots – such as Van Burens’ self-dealings, László’s addiction and the racism directed at his pal, Gordon (Isaach De Bankolé) – are meant as anecdotal, some of the later developments and shocking revelations are seemingly out of nowhere. After pushing viewers through such a gauntlet, the film leaves them wondering whether they have unintentionally memory-holed parts of the plot when in fact the post-intermission storytelling gets a little sloppy. 

Flaws and all, this is truly the cinematic event of the year (Focus Features is releasing the film internationally, no domestic distributor has been announced yet). In the age of streaming, this feels like something that truly demands to be experienced in a proper venue, preferably a single-screen with all the drapery and plush seats, to disappear into the dark and go back in time, if only briefly.

Grade: A-

This review is from the 2024 Venice Film Festival. There is no U.S. distribution as of yet.