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The Reel Review

B+

The lives of a visionary architect and his wife are changed forever when they flee post-WWII Europe for a better life in the United States and meet a wealthy but mercurial industrialist client. Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones star in this epic drama about the role of architecture in the evolution of mid-1900s America.

Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce in The Brutalist

Visually, The Brutalist is stunning, its first half immersively capturing the surreal, head-spinning experience of starting a new life in a new country, set to an emotionally stirring score. The three leads give outstanding, career-defining performances – Brody as Hungarian-born Jewish architect László Tóth, wanting to leave a legacy but discovering that nothing in this new world is ever as it initially seems, Pearce as the selfish, ego-driven tycoon Harrison Lee Van Buren, who starts and stops the massive project on a whim, and Jones as Toth’s perceptive wife who recognizes Van Buren’s abusive treatment of her husband when she appears in the film’s second half.

Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones in The Brutalist

With a title based on Toth’s architectural style, The Brutalist is intended as a love letter to artistry and a criticism of the business elements that all too often ruin it. The Brutalist certainly swings for the fences with its epicness, but the overly ambitious story from director Brady Corbet (Vox Lux) and co-writer/partner Mona Fastvold is crammed with too many topics (immigration, assimilation, drug addiction, prejudice, cultural barriers), suffers from disjointed storytelling in the second half, leaves unanswered major plot points (what happens to Pearce’s character?), and has an epilogue that, other than the big reveal, is itself a real head scratcher. Lots of style, not so much substance.

REEL FACTS

• With a runtime of three hours and 34 minutes, The Brutalist is the first movie to have an intermission since the 70mm roadshow release of 2015’s The Hateful Eight.

• Initially Joel Edgerton, Marion Cotillard and Mark Rylance were to be the leading cast, but they were eventually replaced by Brody, Jones and Pearce following numerous delays due to the COVID pandemic.

Adrien Brody in The Pianist

• Adrien Brody previously played a Jewish Holocaust survivor in 2002’s The Pianist, which earned him a Best Actor Oscar.

 

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