Film Assessment: The Brutalist (2024)

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Style: Epic Drama

Director: Brady Corbet

Starring: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Man Pearce, Alessandro Nivola

Working Time: 201 minutes

Synopsis: After the tip of World Conflict Two, famend Hungarian architect Laszlo Toth (Adrian Brody) immigrates to the USA, forsaking his spouse Erzsebet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsofia. A no one in his new nation, Laszlo settles in Philadelphia, the place his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) owns a furnishings retailer. A interval of battle ensues, together with a falling out with Attila, habit to opium, and homelessness. Native tycoon Harrison Van Buren (Man Pearce) learns of Laszlo’s pre-war achievements and retains him to design a monumental cultural centre in reminiscence of Harrison’s mom. However many difficulties await on the journey from imaginative and prescient to actuality.

What Works Nicely: That is grandiose storytelling with magnanimous cinematography, affected person scene-building, and evocative music. Via the travails of 1 man, director and co-writer Brady Corbet explores the scope and scale of the post-war immigrant expertise, right here with a deal with a fractured Jewish household. Adrien Brody exudes an exhausted mixture of resignation and frustration, Laszlo Toth’s prior skilled file and the horrors of his wartime experiences counting for nothing within the new world. He’s decreased to shoveling grime and sleeping in a shelter whereas subjected to the dichotomy of discrimination and cautious acceptance. The winding pathway again to self-respect and achievement passes via Van Buren as a posh counterpoint and institution consultant, a rich however short-fused and deeply flawed energy dealer with the potential to each make and break the newcomer.

What Does Not Work As Nicely: Regardless of the mammoth size, a number of key narrative milestones are skipped, forsaking a typically irritating fill-in-the-blanks construction. The script seems to deliberately zoom in on distractions (the sexual frustrations between the Toths, as soon as reunited; limitless admiration of an Italian marble quarry), whereas dangling then abandoning foundational plot threads (Harrison’s grown kids are outstanding till they don’t seem to be; Toth’s architectural achievements are an train in speak rather a lot however present little).

Key Quote:

Laszlo: Is there a greater description of a dice than that of its building?

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