The Brutalist
In Brady Corbet’s award-laden drama, Adrien Brody stars as a Jewish architect from Budapest who, after the war, emigrates to New York.
Adrien Brody as László Tóth.
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
I wrote this review just days after The Brutalist carried off three Golden Globes having won for best film drama, best actor (Adrien Brody) and best director (Brady Corbet). Furthermore, as the time comes for members of the London Film Critics’ Circle to send in the final votes for their awards, The Brutalist is on the list of contenders in no less than seven categories. Despite all that, some critics have already taken a less positive view of this ambitious work and I feel that it calls for detailed consideration in order to identify both its virtues and its vices. To do that, it is appropriate to ponder the film stage by stage as it unfolds.
This is the third feature film written and directed by the actor Brady Corbet and like the first one, 2015’s The Childhood of a Leader, the credit for the screenplay is shared by him and his partner Mona Fastvold. Wisely Corbet has once again used the services of that fine photographer Lol Crawley but, having previously given us works lasting about two hours, we now have a film with a running length of 215 minutes. That fact on its own justifies one in thinking of The Brutalist as an epic work and, indeed, it echoes the approach if not the genre of many large scale works of the 1950s and 1960s. It begins with what is designated an ‘Overture’ although it goes beyond being a musical prelude and actually starts the story since it shows the leading character, László Tóth, a Jewish architect from Budapest arriving in New York in 1947 under a repatriation programme. This, of course, is Brody’s role. This introduction is followed by Part I (‘The Enigma of Arrival’) which takes Tóth’s story up to 1952 and it is followed by the slightly shorter Part II (‘The Hard Core of Beauty’) which continues the tale up to 1970 before the film concludes with an Epilogue set in 1980. There are two other ways in which The Brutalist specifically echoes that earlier era of filmmaking. Very sensibly, I think, it brings back the Intermission lasting for fifteen minutes between the two parts which is included within the official running time. I welcome this not only because many will appreciate a toilet break but because an interval enables one to return to the film refreshed by the pause (would that Martin Scorsese had done the same with his recent long running films!). In addition, Crawley’s excellent photography uses a process which, introduced in the 1950s, had seemingly now become strictly historical: VistaVision which was noted for its high definition.
Part I of The Brutalist finds the film flowing beautifully and it is by far the better section. Even then, recognising that fact is not altogether to praise it. The huge acclaim inherent in the film’s host of award nominations invites one to expect some kind of a masterpiece and in some respects Corbet's approach suggests that he thought that he was creating nothing less. As László Tóth’s story develops we find him initially joining his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) who lives in Philadelphia with his Catholic wife, Audrey (Emma Laird), and runs a furniture business under the deliberately misleading name of Miller and Sons (it hides the fact that the owner is a foreigner and plays up America's love for family businesses). But László, a Holocaust survivor, hopes to recharge his architectural career in America while awaiting news of his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones). She has a mute niece, Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy), and is still in Europe unable so far to obtain the papers that will get the two of them to the USA. It looks like a major step in advancing his career afresh when László is invited to transform a room in the home of a rich industrialist by converting it into a new modern library. However, the invitation comes from the man's son, Harry (Joe Alwyn), who intends it as a surprise for his father and it all proves disastrous when the father, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), comes back, sees what is in progress and promptly hates it. Later, however, Van Buren, by then having become aware of László’s abilities as extolled in an illustrated magazine article, seeks him out and in time offers him a major commission in the form of an elaborate community building to be erected in memory of the industrialist’s late wife. Furthermore, it is possible that Van Buren's lawyer (Peter Polycarpou) will be able to assist in making arrangements for Erzsébet to come to America at last.
As a portrait of László Tóth’s slow but promising progression in America, Part I shows Corbet's direction at its very best. He keeps things moving admirably and there is an adroit use of sound: it creates a sense of background (including occasional overlapping voices) and helps to establish the period (there are extracts not overemphasised from such pop songs as ‘Buttons and Bows’, ‘It's So Nice to Have a Man about the House’ and ‘You Are My Destiny’). But when it comes to information supplied through inserted newsreel footage one feels that Corbet has in mind Citizen Kane and the references to events of the day such as the establishment of the state of Israel and the passing of the Displaced Persons Act in 1948 point to this being developed as a work on a significant scale. That is also, of course, what the film’s award nominations would suggest but what one realises even in Part I is that the screenplay is such that the film functions on the lower level of popular fiction. The characterisations attest to that. In the case of László Tóth himself, Adrien Brody’s deep commitment to the role, the way in which he plays it from the inside, disguises the limitations which are in any case clearer in the case of other characters. Guy Pearce's Van Buren enters in a scene that threatens to be over the top but then settles down, yet even so Van Buren emerges as a somewhat thinly drawn figure. That is even more apparent when it comes to his unpleasant son, a role which has no life in it at all and wastes the talent of Joe Alwyn. Nevertheless, if one considers the first half of The Brutalist as a pleasing piece of storytelling for a mass audience, it stands up on that level as extremely competent.
But for two reasons Part II fails to match what has gone before. It brings in Erzsébet and Zsofia in person and other new subsidiary figures as well, but the way in which the narrative progresses becomes increasingly contrived and melodramatic and that at the very time when the work is leading up to making big statements that need to feel justified. Recently A Real Pain operated on a modest scale to say worthwhile things about Jewish lives and issues but The Brutalist is in every way the reverse of that. In theory it is doing several important things. It is in part telling a story about the problems faced by an artist reliant on commissions from people who are then likely to restrict the artist’s freedom while also looking at another concern relating to many artists: the potential cost to their personal lives and to the lives of those close to them whenever an artist puts art first. Even more importantly, as the Epilogue confirms by giving it such prominence, The Brutalist is about how the world treats Jews. But these various matters are never explored with the depth and conviction required if the film is to be considered any kind of a masterpiece.
When it comes to the Jewish issues, we find The Brutalist strongly supporting the Zionist movement while going out of its way to assert that Americans hate the Jews and want rid of them. It goes further by suggesting that that hostility also applies to foreigners generally. Such a viewpoint may have gained some weight recently having regard to Donald Trump's views, but the point is that The Brutalist impliedly tells a story that backs up this assertion whereas in fact the longer the film goes on the more we are treated to a series of individual events that carry no weight in this respect due to the storyline increasingly dealing in fictional plotting of limited conviction. Its characters only exist within that sphere so can’t stand up as figures whose behaviour can convincingly be used as a basis for deeply serious and critical themes about American society and its views. It is all too characteristic that the big confrontational scene that provides the climax to Part II, an inferior echo of the Danish film Festen, feels set up rather than persuasive.
Admirers of The Brutalist may well feel that my rating for it is absurdly low, but I myself almost wonder if it is too generous. One is trying here to balance the very conflicting responses aroused by the film: I couldn't accept it as the profound statement that it seemed to regard itself as being and even as popular entertainment it eventually falls decidedly short. But on that latter level the first half is quite remarkably adept and Adrien Brody’s performance is acting of real distinction even if I am not persuaded that the material deserved it.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Emma Laird, Stacy Martin, Isaach de Bankolé, Alessandro Nivola, Ariane Labed, Jonathan Hyde, Peter Polycarpou, Michael Epp.
Dir Brady Corbet, Pro Brady Corbet, Trevor Matthews, Nick Gordon, Brian Young, Andrew Morrison, Andrew Lauren and D.J. Gugenheim, Screenplay Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold, Ph Lol Crawley, Pro Des Judy Becker, Ed David Jancso, Music Daniel Blumberg, Costumes Kate Forbes.
Brookstreet Pictures/Kaplan Morrison/Intake Films/Andrew Lauren Productions/LipSync-Universal Pictures.
215 mins. USA/UK/Canada. 2024. US Rel: 20 December 2024. UK Rel: 24 January 2025. Cert. 18.
