The Brutalist
Review by Mark Woodring
Much ado about The Brutalist since it debuted at Cannes, not entirely due to its exceptional runtime.
The thing has an intermission, for God’s sake!
Actually, a couple of my favorite movies have intermissions (Lawrence of Arabia, The Right Stuff), so I don’t really mind that much, as long as the film earns that break.
**NOTE: this post may be updated with audio once we actually have the chance to talk about it. Until then, you can read Mark’s review below. Remember, though, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
215 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Brady Corbet, Mona Fastvold
Directed by Brady Corbet
Synopsis:
When visionary architect Lazlo Toth and his wife Erzabet flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious and wealthy client.
Well, for the most part, The Brutalist measures up.
A great, post World War II emigration film, The Brutalist follows gifted architect Lazlo Toth, played by Adrien Brody from his camp liberation to his arrival in America, where he attempts to restart his life while also clinging to the hope of getting his wife to rejoin him there.
After being “discovered” by a rich patron, played by Guy Pearce, Lazlo is tasked with fulfilling the man’s dream, a complex to build a community around in suburbs of Philadelphia.
Lazlo’s style (Brutalism, hence the title) and his Jewishness immediately clash with the Christian community leaders, despite his inclusion of beautiful and revolutionary Christian touches. Lazlo is not a man who doesn’t take into account the wishes of his patron, but he does it with a bluntness and originality that rankles.
The small-town politics is on full display, not trusting an outsider, much less a Jew in the aftermath of the war.
This put me in mind of the architectural purity of Howard Roarke from Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead: an uncompromising genius, constantly at odds with those who cannot or will not see what he does, and consider practical things like “cost” instead of beauty.
As one character puts it, Lazlo “worships only at the alter of himself.”
As the film progress, Lazlo reunited with his wife (Felicity Jones) and niece, who cares for her after her time in the camps left her a partial invalid, and necessary (and unnecessary) changes to the project continue to plague Lazlo.
After the project is shelved halfway through due to a transportation accident in which men died, Lazlo drifts aimlessly, until the project restarts after the legal wrangling is done.
Spoiler alert, the project is eventually completed.
The film is constructed in a way that mixes historical footage of both the war and of post-war Pennsylvania, along with some historical facts presented in an almost briefing-like way, as if the audience needed a primer in order to understand what was going on in the film.
It does not.
I will admit that one bit of archival footage shown was of my Pennsylvania hometown, which made me a bit giddy… but it wasn’t really needed.
The performances are excellent across the board, and the cinematography and score are of equally high quality, but…
…but that runtime…
Look, I’ll admit this film could have easily been an hour shorter simply by cutting some of the slow, panning shots or extended visuals of two-lane roads being traversed by bus, but I can’t really be angry about the extra time, simply because the rest of the film is so damned good.
Not enjoyable, because frankly, there are some pretty non-enjoyable parts, but The Brutalist is a film that richly deserves all the press you’re hearing about it. Absolutely.
Thankfully, this runtime includes the 15 minute intermission.
Trust me; it’s worth the time.
The Brutalist is in theaters on December 20 and stars Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, and Stacy Martin.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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