Review of The Brutalist, directed by Brady Corbet

If you’re new here, and stumbled upon this blog through the mythical powers of the Internet, welcome! I know a lot of visitors to my website are people who randomly come upon this website through search engines like Google, but I also do have a lot of visitors who come back. Regardless: my name is Ashley, and I started this blog in order to keep track of everything I’m coming across in the world.

I feel like a lot of my blog introductions, especially when it comes to movies, have been lamenting on the fact I don’t have a ton of time lately. I used to work as a film critic (which, in fact, was so incredibly underpaid that I now make more off of this blog’s display ads than I ever did publishing anywhere else), and then when I was in graduate school I was writing a lot about film, so I used to watch so many movies.

But now I work an 8-5, come home, and then doom scroll my evenings away instead of watching the movies I used to love so dearly. And recently I realized I want to stop doing that, so I’ve set limits on my phone and am fully prepared to sit back and watch more movies and read more books in order to feed my brain.

I meant to see The Brutalist originally when it came out in theaters, but because I didn’t have a car at that moment in my life, I gave up my local movie theatre subscription and decided that I would see it later. Lo and behold, two years later, I was bored on a flight home from Portugal and saw this movie as an option.

It seemed like a great way to get through three hours of this eight hour flight, and it did indeed go quite faster once I got into the rhythm of this movie.

Let’s get into the review!

After surviving the Holocaust in Europe, one Jewish architect finds rebuilding a life in the United States isn’t so easy.

This movie is split into different periods of the main character’s life. László Tóth is a well-known architect from Hungary, but with the onset of World War II and fascist beliefs in Europe, he was forced to leave his wife and niece behind in Hungary. He moves to New York City, where he initially establishes himself, before heading to Philadelphia to work for his cousin Attila.

Attila has a furniture store in the city and assimilated, marrying a Catholic American woman and changing his name to fit in. He brings László into the store and business, giving him a place to live and eat, while also revealing his wife and niece are still alive. Soon they’re approached by Harry Lee Van Buren, who wants to build a library in his father’s study.

László starts the project, which is a grand endeavor in his Bauhaus style. Back at home, he dances one night with Attila and his wife, but they try to get László to dance with her despite his discomfort. The wife also tells him that she doesn’t like him and he should live somewhere else, then when Harrison Lee Van Buren, the father, blows up after seeing the study, Attila confronts László. He accuses him of screwing the project up and making a pass at his wife, which László denies.

Kicked out of his home, László lives in charity housing with his buddy Gordon. He’s addicted to heroin and works as a laborer loading up coal, and Harrison comes one day looking for him. Turns out his study is the talk of the town and featured in magazines, leading to him wanting to research László.

When he found out László is a famous architect, he hires him to build a project in tribute to his mother. László is given a home on-site and he gets to work, hiring his buddy Gordon, and Harrison’s lawyer helps bring his wife and niece to the country. They come in 1953, with his wife, Erzsébet, wheelchair bound, and Zsófia unable to speak due to trauma.

László runs into trouble with Harrison due to the cost of the project, but is fired when a train with materials is derailed. This comes after Harrison acts gross towards László and his niece. Five years later, we see they’ve moved to New York City.

Zsófia is married and pregnant, and she announces she’s making aliyah and returning to Israel. Harrison begins his project again, but during a trip Harrison rapes László and demeans his people. It’s from that point on László begins to become undone, even firing Gordon int he midst of the project.

It’s after he almost kills his wife with heroin she suggest that they move to Israel. His wife confronts Harrison in front of everyone at a party, calling him a rapist, and Harry moves to go after her. It’s his sister who stops him from completely beating Erzsébet up and helps her leave, but Harrison is missing.

In the final part of the movie, Erzsébet passes away in 1980. At the Venice Biennale of Architecture there’s a retrospective of László’s work, including what he did for the Van Buren household. Zsófia attends with László and her daughter, giving the speech for him and saying how he designed around his experiences in the concentration camps.

Architecture was a way for him to process his trauma, then she ends the speech with a quote he used to tell her about how it’s the destination we get to, no matter what others sell to you.

Overall Thoughts

I will say at first: this is an overwhelming movie to get through on a flight, although I’m glad I watched it. Its pacing is a bit off throughout the course of the film, but I think this is an important story to tell—although I could see others turned off by its subject matter or even the main character himself at times.

Adrien Brody does a fantastic job in these brooding kind of roles, and this is another example of something where he’s in his element throughout the course of the film. Is this a perfect movie? Definitely not, but it is a work of art throughout, especially in terms of cinematography.

I say go watch this one if you ever get the chance—it’s worth picking up at least once, even if you have to split your viewings into the sections the film divides itself into.

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