Review by John Larkin
From it's first moments it's clear Brady Corbet's THE BRUTALIST is intended to be a substantial cinematic experience. Evoking the Hollywood epics of the 1960's, we're introduced to both the retro VistaVision logo and an old-school opening musical overture. Like such classics as LAWRENCE OF ARABIA or BEN-HUR, THE BRUTALIST is also shot on glorious 70mm and features an intermission splitting the film into two halves. Though unlike the lengthy opening overtures of LAWRENCE and BEN-HUR, we're quickly thrust from THE BRUTALIST's brief overture into the first scene. It's a hefty setup that precedes a film that ends up being more minimalistic and intimate than expected despite it's three and a half-hour run time.
Corbet is making an old school American epic, but there won't be thousands of extras or traditional A-List heroes with rousing monologues. That doesn't mean the quality of the filmmaking suffers - Director of Photography Laurie "LOL" Crawley and Production Designer Judy Becker beautifully paint each frame on a shockingly low budget of under $10M!
Adrien Brody as Laszlo Toth, is a Hungarian brutalist architect who immigrates to America after World War II. While a success in his native Hungary, Toth has to start from scratch in America to make his way. Toth's journey from working in his cousin's (Alessandro Nivola) furniture store, to designing a massive community center for a wealthy business man, embodies the American dream. Within that journey are a series of starts and stops - the rocky road to creative nirvana.
Toth is passionate but flawed, and emotionally rebellious. He speaks his mind, at times against better judgement, and becomes semi-crippled by a heroin addiction. Corbet and co-writer Mona Fastvold seem intent on solidifying his subversive nature by naming their fictional character after the man who vandalized Michelangelo's Pieta back in 1972.
Praise must be given to Adrien Brody, who gets to run the emotional gauntlet throughout nearly every scene in both halves of the film. I was reminded of how powerful his work in THE PIANIST (2003) was, and I hope he secures his second best actor oscar for this role.
Equally impressive is Guy Pearce as Harrison Lee Van Buren, the wealthy business magnate who befriends and praises Laszlo's creative genius, after initially denouncing him. Pearce is funny and horrifying in equal measure and I would cast my vote for him for best supporting actor.
Felicity Jones as Toth's ailing wife is excellent, though her character unfortunately felt one note and is only really given one strong scene towards the end that felt more necessitated than organic, to break up the monotony of her character's situation.
THE BRUTALIST is prestige art-house punk-rock, one that will engage and connect with some more than others. It's runtime and subject matter may prove to be challenging for mainstream audiences though. It will be interesting to see how the conversation evolves when the film goes wide later this year.
I found the first half significantly stronger and more engrossing than the second half, which lost some narrative steam and veered more into familiar melodramatic topes.
I can't help but think if it didn't strive so hard to be the return of old hollywood movie palace event cinema with it's VistaVision, Intermission and three a half hour run time, it would have fit the minimalistic nature of the film better and could have potentially provided a more emotionally satisfying experience to Toth's journey.
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