Review: 'The Brutalist' is the movie of the year
Wowza -- what a movie. I'm talking about "The Brutalist," hitting theaters this week like a thunderbolt of pure cinema. Brady Corbet, the creator of this bruising masterpiece, is only 36, and this is only his third film after warming up with "The Childhood of a Leader" and "Vox Lux." But "The Brutalist" celebrates the arrival of a renegade artist at the peak of his powers.
That description also fits the film's powderkeg protagonist László Tóth (a thrilling Adrien Brody in the performance of the year), a Hungarian-born Jewish architect and Holocaust survivor who arrives in America in a burst of anticipation, except he's not sure of what. The film describes it as "the enigma of arrival," never knowing what's ahead, joy or terror.
The opening sequence, set to Daniel Blumberg's propulsive engine of a score, is a jaw-dropping stunner with a tumble of tired, poor, huddled immigrant masses being propelled upward out of ship's steerage and onto the upper deck for a skewed, awestruck view of the Statue of Liberty, only seen on her side or upside down, as pictured in the film's poster.
Corbet is building a world out of balance, with the gifted László scrounging to exist while living in a storage space in the Philadelphia home of his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola). Heroin barely dulls László's shame at being broke and apart from his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), who is wheelchair bound from malnutrition. She's stuck in Europe with their niece, Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy).
From 1947 to 1952, László can't catch a break until the son (Joe Alwyn) of wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (a revelatory Guy Pearce) hires László to redesign his father's library. The big man hates the result, but sudden acclaim prompts moneybags to offer László the dream commission of designing and building an entire community center.
Brody and Pearce burn up the screen when these titans of art and commerce do battle, sending the churning volcano of a script by Corbet and life partner Mona Fastvold into full eruption. Harrison plays benefactor by bringing Erzsébet to America. But his hidden agenda -- putting László's art at the service of Van Buren money -- doesn't stay hidden for long.
"The Brutalist" runs 3 hours and 35 minutes with a 15-minute intermission, but it never feels long -- great movies never do. And Corbet worked wonders in just 33 days, with camera wiz Lol Crawley making the film look like a 100 million bucks, though the film cost a tenth of that.
Part 2 kicks off with the entrance of Erzsébet and gives the magnificent Jones a chance to make up for lost time with a searing portrayal of a woman who won't let a disability or a cheating husband compromise her career as a journalist or the fierce independence built into her DNA.
In architecture, brutalism is a minimalist design popularized in the 1950s that uses exposed, unpainted concrete or brick in monochrome reaction to merely decorative elements. It's the same way Corbet makes movies, unsentimental and uncompromising
It was also in the 1950s that VistaVision was used to offer an expansive field of vision, making it ideal for representing architecture. Corbet brings it back full force. Seek out "The Brutalist" on the largest screen possible, where it hungrily fulfills its mission to provoke and engulf you.
Corbet stumbles a bit in the last section of the film that follows László over decades and leans too hard on the rape symbolism of artistic and sexual dominance. What counts is the miraculous way Corbet threads the themes of immigration and assimilation through his momentous passion project. Immigrant identity, personal and aesthetic, faces obliteration by American capitalism.
It still does, which makes "The Brutalist" as timely and prophetic as tomorrow's dire news alerts. Brody, who already has an Oscar for "The Pianist," should be holding space for the next one. Acting doesn't get better or go deeper than the emotional tour de force delivered by Brody, who brings every fiber of his being to the role of his career. You can't take your eyes off him.
Corbet is out to batter every cliché Hollywood holds dear. Lovers of formula and sugarcoating will hate it. They think anything alive is dangerous. Luckily, Corbet thrives on danger and rule-busting experimentation. He's a cinema powerhouse who's just getting started, turning "The Brutalist" into the movie of the year, and following László's lead, he's built it to last.
