"The Brutalist" Review: A Sobering Dissection of The American Dream

Brady Corbet's epic is an intriguing story of hope and suffering.

February 1, 2025

In many advertisements for The Brutalist, the new film about a Hungarian Jewish architect attempting to make it in America post-Holocaust, it has been described as “ambitious.” Many words are overused in film analysis, like “haunting,” “devastating,” and “raw.” "Ambitious” is in that category and ordinarily used to describe a very long movie.

‍

Technically, the definition of “ambitious” is, “(of a plan or piece of work) intended to satisfy high aspirations and therefore difficult to achieve.” Therefore, films rarely meet the necessary criteria to be “ambitious.”

‍

Instead, films should be credited not for what they aim to be but for the actual result of their efforts. Conceptually, The Brutalist is catnip for the art house crowd: it’s freakishly long, clocking in at a whopping 215 minutes; it makes divergent technical choices; its actors made a name for themselves performing in more critically acclaimed, Academy-recognized projects, like Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, and Guy Pearce.

‍

Walking into the theater, all of this would indicate that the incessant praise is undeserved. It won’t be “ambitious” or“monumental” as the poster claims. It will be self-indulgent filmmaking at its worst, a monument to everything that sweeps up Oscars and nothing that makes a good movie. Expectations would be reasonably low and inevitably fulfilled.

‍

Yet, that would prove wrong: The Brutalist is very good.

‍

Why? Everything that would ordinarily make it self-indulgent Oscar bait elevates it. Audiences are not unfamiliar with Jewish stories, whether during or well after the Holocaust. We are no strangers to long movies or stylistic heavy-handedness. What is somewhat uncommon, however, is a film able to harness these things to deliver something that can make an impact.

‍

Truthfully, although The Brutalist has the potential to make that impact, its choices sometimes miss the mark, rendering it more of an admirable effort than a titanic achievement. As with any long film, it begins slowly, deliberately laying its protagonist's foundation and the narrative he will navigate. In these moments, there’s a sense of aimless wandering. Adrien Brody struggles to overcome what made his Oscar-winning turn in The Pianist so unconvincing, along with his roles in the subsequent years.

‍

He’s obvious; the wheels are always turning, and he externalizes that process so plainly it prevents envelopment.

‍

As László visits a local brothel and shacks up with his cousin, Attila, there’s a desire to accelerate. It's not due to poisoned attention spans but the film’s inability to establish why our patience will eventually feel earned.

‍

Ultimately, that dissipates but resurfaces in the final half-hour, which is the case of all long movies. Much like Gone with the Wind, which grips us from Scarlett O’Hara’s peaceful Antebellum existence through her triumph during Reconstruction, it peters out. In the 1939 epic, that means stuffing every event from the novel into an alarmingly short time to weave in all the thematic threads.

‍

In 1962's Lawrence of Arabia, it’s similar. By the time Lawrence arrives in Damascus, the political upheaval doesn’t have time to develop his character and thus resolve his journey. It’s rushed through, Lawrence leaves, and the film ends.

‍

The Brutalist suffers this fate with moments that theoretically have meaning and the hope they’ll land, but they don't. The rape of László by his employer, Harrison Van Buren, might be metaphorically significant, displaying the need for dominance over “lesser” beings, but there are many ways to convey such ideas other than rape. It feels like a reach even Manute Bol couldn't achieve.

‍

The accidental overdose of an osteoporosis-inflicted Erzsébet when László injects her with heroin to soothe her pain feels intended to layer the journey of the titular architect. The Holocaust robbed him of everything that made him human; heroin is restorative. He fails to see that it’s merely a destructive crutch that nearly robs him of what kept him going and made him build the monstrosity Harrison commissions precisely as he did: his love for, and longing to reunite with, Erzsébet. It’s a fair aim but ultimately unnecessary: across 215 minutes, László gets thoroughly characterized without his addiction.

‍

As such, the film’s falling action contains unneeded and largely unexplored threads. Thus, many scenes, like Erzsébet’s confrontation of Harrison for his rape of László, feel like an attempt to prevent loose ends. Ironically, including them draws attention to the fact that they were, in fact, unneeded and unexplored.

‍

Were all the stylistic choices necessary? No. Shrouding cousin Attila in darkness as he reams László for an alleged pass at his Catholic wife, Audrey, and costing him business with his supposed irresponsibility might satisfy cinephiles, but it’s a pointless addition that carries little weight save a limp attempt to harken back to it as László excoriates Erzsébet for her naivety regarding the Jewish plight in America.

‍

But make no mistake, the prior statement is true: The Brutalist is very good.

‍

If there was one moment to encapsulate why Brady Corbet’s film works, it’s when a supply train travels to the building site. Daniel Blumberg’s percussive score underlies the atmosphere. You can feel something looming, and the movie suspends you in uneasy anticipation. Corbet slowly pans out as the smoke gradually masks the train. Then, it happens: a colorful explosion in the bottom left corner of the screen that, while small, feels more momentous than a blockbuster firestorm.

‍

When The Brutalist is intelligent with its artistry, it’s fantastic. Corbet crafts a subtle dread as László takes on the epic structure with which Harrison honors his deceased mother. Brody doesn’t oversell his idealism: he’s a passionate man with a particular vision who believes in his employer. The screenplay resists typical developments in their dynamic, like syrupy conversations about prior experiences or histrionic declarations of mutual respect.

‍

It’s a subtle understanding hindsight grants that past people couldn't possess. The exploiter views their exploit-ee with perverse admiration, the way white basketball crowds gleefully looked on as black players won their city championships. Jews aren't good enough to be equals, but they are plenty good enough to provide a service. If the work is admirable, they'll earn admiration with that distant condescension that's too subtle to reject.

‍

Sure, Corbet and his partner Mona Fastvold’s screenplay occasionally deviates from this, namely when Harrison’s sociopathic son, Harry Lee, plainly tells László that he is merely “tolerated,” but it's restrained when developing the socio-cultural nuances that make The Brutalist involving. It expertly creates frustration as we watch László’s circumstances, getting separated from his wife during the Holocaust, get exploited. Harrison and his ilk don’t genuinely care for László’s predicament, but the self-congratulatory earnestness with which they champion the cause of reuniting husband and wife while slipping in compliments about his architectural genius is the sort of grooming that oppressors routinely engage in with their oppressed.

‍

If one truth relays The Brutalist's effectiveness, it’s Corbet's trust that we'll bring our empathy to the theater. He merely accents that understanding with his rich exploration of his protagonist. Brody thrives in this regard, but from top to bottom, there’s a desire to avoid lecturing. We’ve been here before, whether in our own lives, on our phones, or in a movie theater. We’ve seen these stories play out; we’ve watched the Lászlós of the world get subjected to their inevitabilities.

‍

The Brutalist adores the VistaVision cameras on which it's shot, the needlessly dark lighting of several of its scenes, and the length of its narrative. Thankfully, it loves the capabilities of these things more than the things themselves. It could easily have been self-indulgent, but it’s not. It has a plain aim to deliver a story, not one that’s intensely challenging but one that will let us explore a new dimension to a common idea. We know what the American dream costs. The Brutalist does an impeccable job of stirring that empathy for a sensitively told story as astounding visually as emotionally inciting. It’s not perfect, but it is, for reasons far removed from the ones most critics will claim, truly “ambitious.”