The Brutalist Movie Review

Adrien Brody makes an epic comeback in an epic four-hour drama about an architect who makes ugly-as-sin brutalist buildings in The Brutalist, a powerful if slightly overhyped piece of filmmaking that deserves to be seen on the big screen.

I, of course, watched it at home, but I cranked up the surround sound and sat close to the TV screen to emulate the experience. And took a couple of more intermissions than the single one director and co-writer Brady Corbet incorporated into his production (when I said “four” hours I meant “three hours and 35 minutes”). 

A man’s got to take a piss every once in a while.

I bitch all the time about long movies–I firmly believe that many movies would benefit from being 30 minutes shorter, and glow when I see that a film’s runtime is under 100 minutes (blinking at you, September 5)–and sure, a drama about the life of an architect probably didn’t need to be this damn long. But The Brutalist sure doesn’t feel long, and every single second of this thing looks and feels like a masterpiece. That doesn’t mean the movie itself is a masterpiece, but it very well may be (time will tell). Visually breathtaking, with a pounding score that comes and goes as if it has a life of its own, and some of the most immersive acting you’ll see all year, this is the kind of picture that doesn’t come along all that often.

Brody, who blew people’s socks off in 2002’s The Pianist but then over time fell into being less relevant, roars back with a vengeance. Traumatized multiple times over, with bad habits and flaws and an attitude that geniuses with a vision tend to have, the fictional László Tóth is an incredibly perfect and challenging character to play (I am so glad I googled him just now, because I would have bet money that The Brutalist was about a real person). Brody is all fucking in.

Guy Pearce is, too, ready to go bloody knuckles with anyone and then do it again. Bring on the supporting actor Oscar nom.

And don’t overlook the ever-reliable Felicity Jones, who shows up halfway through the movie like a goddamn boss and starts chewing up those around her… before spitting them out like a wad of tobacco.

The Brutalist, riding a groundswell of buzz, sets almost unrealistic expectations. For all its accolades, and the amazing score and the killer performances and the incredible direction, the one thing that hampers it just ever so slightly is that it is, ultimately, a movie about a guy trying to make a big, ugly, concrete building. Epicly told, but not necessarily an epic story, The Brutalist works in contrast to itself. Brady Corbet doesn’t seem to care, and perhaps we shouldn’t either.

Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.