150 Word Review: 'The Brutalist' (2024)

Once upon a time in Doylestown, PA

Photo: A24

Adrien Brody's face is a magnificent canvas in The Brutalist, a booming three-and-a-half-hour historical melodrama about beauty and money in midcentury Pennsylvania.

He plays László Tóth, a brilliant Jewish architect who escapes post-war Europe for the safety and opportunity of the U.S., only to discover the country is out of both. In America, immigrants are tolerated and resented simultaneously. The movie then becomes Rand-ian: a misunderstood genius builds a temple to the ego of a wealthy WASP (a cartoonish Guy Pearce.)

The Brutalist is intimate and intense when the camera lingers on Brody's sorrowful eyes. There are also a few moments of gorgeous emptiness. Haunting wide shots. Writer/director Brady Corbet has admirable cinematic ambitions—he wants The Brutalist to be a soaring cathedral. Unfortunately, it's a cold marble block of content that could easily be chiseled into an episodic streaming series. Stock characters, colorless exposition, and contrived confrontations—yet Brody suffers sublimely.

---

---

Hear Me Out, This Is Another Good Adrien Brody Movie: ‘Splice’ (2009)

Photo: Gaumont