Film Review: The Brutalist
The Brutalist tells the story of a Jewish immigrant from Hungary to the USA in the wake of world war two. From there, it’s easy to spoil to the plot, so I won’t say more, but it’s an engrossing story.
The film fits into the stereotype of Oscar bait, a European protagonist, a US setting, a complicated, conflicted mental landscape, and stylish, disorientating camera work. It manages to rise above this, to being a genuinely thrilling, tense, and entertaining story.
It’s a long film, and my screening had a 15 minute intermission at the 100 minute mark, which I much appreciated. I think it’s perhaps a sign of the waning popularity of cinema that this is possible. As in the past cinemas have been keen to squeeze as many screenings into a day as possible and avoid intermissions.
The performances are uniformly great, with particularly mesmerising ones from Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce.
This is a character led film. Whilst the architecture plays an important part both in the plot and as a general metaphor, it’s the people and their actions that drive things forward.
Perhaps the only real negative of the film is that it is not based on a true story. Whilst both the brightness and the darkness ring true, some of the story’s impact is lost when that is realised.
After discovering that it’s a fictional story I thought of another great film featuring Adrien Brody. Hollywoodland from 2006, starred (and directed by) Ben Affleck, and told the strange tale of the death of the first actor to play Superman on US TV. It was made all the more impactful from being a true story albeit with an ambiguous ending. The Brutalist is essentially the opposite of this.
The Brutalist is a timely look at the human condition and how we treat each other. Recommended.