The Brutalist – REVIEW

Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce in The Brutalist

Author’s Note: An article was recently published about The Brutalist and how it utilizes generative AI for certain elements in this film. I’ve linked the original article here, but I don’t mention it in the review because a majority of the below was written before this article went viral.


Man, this one has a lot of hype around it. One of the year’s big awards frontrunners, co-writer/director Brady Corbet has The Brutalist up to bat, which releases wide in the U.S. and the U.K. on January 24, which has seemingly come out of nowhere. Corbet has come out of nowhere in the awards scene, really shocked that he came back bounding from Vox Lux, an ambitious, campy movie in its own right. A24, who’s distributing the film, pulled a little marketing stunt with the Golden Globes, waiting to see if The Brutalist would pick up any awards. Not only did it, but it ended up winning three of the biggest awards of the night: Best Picture – Drama, director for Corbet, and lead actor for Adrien Brody. Having seen it a few days ago, I honestly think I needed to give myself some time to think about this. In The Brutalist, we follow László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect that escapes post-WWII Europe to live with his cousin in Pennsylvania. He’s attempting to rebuild his life in America, while his wife and niece, Erzsébet and Zsófia, are held back. An enigmatic businessman, Harrison Lee Van Buren, then takes a liking to him and commissions him to build a monument for his mother. It gets more in-depth than that, but that’s all the necessary details without going deeper into the movie. A big talking point is the runtime, which runs at just over three and a half hours. It’s got an intermission too, but out of actual theatrical experiences, not taking in how I felt about the movie itself, I really did love it. During the 15 minute intermission at an IMAX theater, I was talking with people in the theater about the movie while getting concessions. It was nice to actually get to talk about movies with random strangers, and in that regard, I’ll cherish making the trek for the 4 hour experience of seeing The Brutalist in a theater. As for the movie itself, it was a surprisingly mixed bag. Adrien Brody’s performance, who’s being hailed as the frontrunner in the Best Actor race, just never fully gelled with me. He feels like he’s ACTING! and really going for an Oscar while playing László. I wouldn’t exactly call this an “Oscar bait” movie, but I don’t see anything different between Brody in this and Bradley Cooper in Maestro. The other main performances, Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones, are both spectacular. Pearce reminds me a lot of Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Master here, and as a whole, The Brutalist does remind me a lot of Paul Thomas Anderson’s work like The Master and There Will Be Blood. If you’re a fan of either of these movies, this should definitely be on your radar. The technical aspects are also stellar. Lol Crawley’s cinematography, which is the first movie since 1997’s The End of Evangelion to be shot in VistaVision, is really stunning to witness. Where The Brutalist caves into its own ambitions, though, is that runtime. The movie ends up losing that magic post-intermission, and it really hits the point of the movie over the head. It’s a pet peeve of mine, and even the way The Brutalist goes about making this point of the system screwing over a creative just left a bad taste. The very out-of-place epilogue also completely rushes the ending, which is shocking that you can rush the ending of a three-and-a-half hour movie. I do think that The Brutalist is an interesting watch, but I really don’t have a desire to rewatch it any time soon.


Ryan’s Grade: B