Brutalism emphasizes massiveness, challenging lightness. There is an almost tedious anchoring in brutalist architecture, a certain solid carving of the landscape. This is how The Brutalist (2024, directed by Brady Corbet) is as a movie—a forceful carving.
Adrien Brody may not be an ideal person (from his shocking open-mouth kiss with Halle Berry at the 2002 Oscars to tossing his chewed gum at his girlfriend Georgina Chapman before droning on for over five minutes in his 2025 Oscars speech), but, damn, the man can act.
His character, the fictional architect Laszlo Thoth, a Hungarian Jew who suffered through the Nazi occupation, moves to the United States after World War II. Brody has won his Oscars portraying oppressed men (his first Oscar came from The Pianist), reinforcing a formula of awards-lucrative themes—World War II, the Holocaust, Jewish identity, and the tortured artist.
What sets The Brutalist apart is how it puts the American Dream to the test for people like Thoth. Is this dream truly for everyone?
Felicity Jones plays his wife and answers this in a scene where she presents her credentials to their wealthy, powerful American patron, played with fierce atrocity by Guy Pearce. Her achievements shock the Americans, highlighting how lowly they perceive fresh immigrants. This is especially prescient given the current American disdain for immigrants. No matter that you designed Budapest’s library—you are just a filthy, grubby, fresh-off-the-boat immigrant in America.
Adrien Brody’s character’s bedraggled face is a corrosive counter to his works, which are operatic arias in concrete. This is essentially the movie’s asymmetry: the solid monuments he designs versus his nervous, self-destructive unraveling. It is one of those infuriating biopics about a miserable, flawed genius—a tired trope held at bay by Brody’s acting mastery. He is exhilarating, from the way he folds like a soggy napkin upon seeing his wife for the first time since the Nazis separated them to his white-hot rage upon discovering his vision will be compromised.
The Brutalist is a beautiful film despite falling into the trope of the messy genius and his (and it is usually he) profoundly beautiful works. The movie is so long that it includes a 15-minute intermission. Frankly, the first half is serviceable, only to be scuppered by the second half. Indulgence is a filmmaker’s sin—however, one can let it pass because it reflects the artist’s doggedness.
The long runtime ultimately highlights the blending of the art and the artist. The movie is very much unlike the tenets of Brutalism, which is entrenched in massive forms and devoid of ornamentation. Yet, this film is filled with ornamentation, with scenes of brutality that push people over the edge. These moments offer opportunities for the actors to “act out,” as if horrible things must happen to produce performances of anger, rapacious suffocation, and despondence. In the end, the movie becomes flippant in its many flourishes—something Brutalism is not.
You may reach Chong Ardivilla at kartunistatonto@gmail.com or chonggo.bsky.social