I struggled with The Brutalist after seeing it weeks ago. In terms of cinema and art, something that sticks with you and is on your mind for a long time is a good thing. Brady Corbet‘s film seemed ideally suited to be one of the best films of 2024, but it left me wanting. I think many things happening in the world made me look at the story of this Jewish Immigrant Architect through a different lens than I might’ve before. I left questioning what the film was saying, and if some of those messages were misconstrued or ignored for other meanings people would put upon the film.
Corbet’s film is mostly about Hungarian-Jewish architect László Tóth, played by Adrien Brody, who struggles to rebuild his life after surviving the Holocaust in Budapest during World War II and emigrating to the United States. He was separated from his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and his niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy) and worries about their safety and whereabouts. At the same time, he starts to build a life first with his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) and his American wife Audrey (Emma Laird) when László meets wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) and his son Harry (Joe Alwyn) through redesigning his personal library. This leads to a decades-long toxic working relationship as László is commissioned to design and build a grand community center in Pennsylvania that, in many ways, almost destroys László.
The easiest thing to get from this is the relationship between artist and patron and how that affects the mental and emotional state of the artist and those around them in the process. That’s something relatable currently not just in terms of people but also how the internet works in regards to people wanting to get their stuff in front of people but having to use these immense platforms owned and operated by these tech billionaires and industries that care very little about those who make the things or the public who views or experiences the creative work. Pearce does an amazing job playing this utterly horrible person who finds all types of ways of asserting his power over others through manipulation, gaslighting, and bullying but is so captivating on screen to watch. Brody’s troubled László is an outstanding performance, though for me, the character felt similar to his in The Pianist. He does suffering creative genius well. His dedication to his work and its mark on the world seemingly feels like it’s destroying from the inside out at times while he’s working with this super rich WASP man that it even affects his marriage.
Felicity Jones, as Erzsébet, who is disabled from the war, is still the one who protects him and is the one who truly understands him and his work. She moves about the world once in the US differently than László as she commands respect from her mere presence while he is, in many ways, shrinking himself. While I understand the story’s structure and why she comes in at the halfway point, I wish she was in a bit more. Her scenes with Pearce are quite good, and they go back and forth with who has the strongest aura of the two. Zsófia’s arc started me down a path of the film not sitting with me. Emma Laird gives a good performance as Zsófia, a girl who, when we meet her, doesn’t speak after all the things she’s gone through. It’s as that character ages and goes into her adulthood that I feel some of the themes about Jewish peoples’ place in the world and Israel can make one focus in on what’s being said here.
Now, whatever smoke I may or may not get from this, I came away with a pretty pro-Zionist message by the end and after finishing the film. It felt like, at least from that character’s perspective, which is the last we hear from, that the Jewish diaspora is only safe in one place, and that place is where they must be. I don’t know, but that doesn’t feel good for anyone or the world. While The Brutalist is a film that is beautifully shot and has impressive acting, it’s a film I think people should see and decide on their own. It’s just a film that I don’t know if it’s a film I’m ever going to feel one hundred percent comfortable with.
Score: A
