El Brutalista

It's hard to know how to describe this movie. Perhaps the title is apt. It's meant to describe the style of architecture its main protagonist employs - harsh, massive, cold concrete monstrosities of buildings. But it also speaks to the brutality of class-divided America, and perhaps of humankind itself.

Some think it's an epic drama of immigration to America by WWII refugees, and part one attests to that and promises much. The we have part 2 where the main character, Hungarian immigrant Laszlo Toth, finds a mentor in the rich but empty-hearted and ultimately cruel businessman Harrison Van Buren and his caricature family. A major architectural project for the local town alternatively promises much then falls apart, much like Toth's relationship with .. just about everyone. The movie falls apart here as it leaps blindingly from confused and often totally unnecessary scene to scene, wasting another couple of hours.

Then we have the epilogue, 20 years later, which is bizarre. It explains little and leaves a lot of unanswered questions. When the final credits roll (at a jarring 30 degree angle), the numbness and frank shock in the cinema audience was palpable.

Adrien Brody gives a fabulous performance in the lead role, although you are never quite sure whether you are supposed to be on his side or not. Felicity Jones seems miscast to me as his refugee wife, physically weak but mentally strong, to me she just doesn't look right for the role. Then there is Guy Pearce, one of my favourite actors, who is very good in the Van Buren role but not Oscar material as has been touted - his performance is just slightly too affected for that.

I'll give it 6 stars for the grandeur of vision, even if unrealised, as well as Brody's performance and the great musical score. But it will go down in my memory as yet another if these grand artistic Hollywood visions that don't really work, and descend into confusion and outright stupidity at times. Many will praise it and score it highly, like those who view a pretentious painting as a visionary masterpiece. You will have to make up your own mind after 3 and a half hours if this movie - thank goodness for the intermission!

'The Brutalist' never lets you breathe. The director builds it with such purpose that you see the care in every frame. He's a talented craftsman, no question, but also so crushingly serious. And that chokes out any real feeling. You watch the artistry turn into artifice. And, after a while, all that weight just presses down.

The film is so obsessed with being Art that it forgets to let you in. It's so heavy with its own importance that it starts to close in on itself so much so that eventually all you see is this polished facade, reflecting its own seriousness back at you.

It doesn't stay with you. It stands there, sealed off by its own sense of importance, and you're left outside.

This ambitious post-war American epic begins with a mesmerising long-take sequence which will surely stick longer than the 3:35 hours of running time. The 70mm format fits the setting while making the movie visually stunning alongside with audacious camera works and stunning photography. Blumberg's music adds on that so the theatre would definitely be its perfect habitat. The script delivers interesting characters - albeit the secondary ones are purely cosmetic - valorised by great performances from Brody and Pearce. The issue here is in the last hour, as the writers decided to insert unexplored subplots which will prevent the movie from having a proper conclusion thus leaving a bitter feeling of incompleteness and preventing this monumental project to achieve what was intended for.

The first half of "The Brutalist" slowly and beautifully unfolds in a way that feels like it's going to be the next "Godfather."

As the second half of the film came after intermission, I was hoping it would continue down that same trajectory, but instead the second half goes down a strange, confusing and puzzling path, which some viewers might find brilliant. When the end did come, I found myself laughing as I shook my head walking the razors edge in my mind, saying to myself, "Why did Corbet go down this path?" and at the same time saying, "that was actually kind of brilliant."

Art is subjective and some people might really like this strange and bizarre second half of the film. Perhaps it was even Corbet's middle finger to the audience saying, "You didn't see that coming, did you?" Whatever the case may be, I give the second half a 4 because the first half was so brilliant, and I really wanted the film to continue going down that same trajectory the entire way through.

In the end, the acting is terrific, the cinematography is absolutely beautiful, and the film is strange. But I give it to Corbet for the effort, making films are hard, and he went for something different with his artistic vision.

Making a movie like "The Brutalist" is not easy nowadays. Epic period dramas are not very trendy and asking the audience to sit for three and a half hours, is not an easy demand. With that being said, I went to the cinema curious to see what Brady Corbet made. I have to say that the movie has a nice start and development. Even if the character of László Tóth never existed and this is in fact a pure fictional story, overall it is pretty believable, at least in the first half. We see the protagonist getting to America, slowly integrating in the society and finding his first important job: building a complex for the rich businessman Var Buren.

The characterization of the protagonist is incredible: we get to know him inside out, which is his backstory, his strengths, his weaknesses, his vices. A brilliant mind that accomplished so much in his home country, getting awarded for the buildings that he projected. The film does a nice job in contextualizing the historical period, through the tragic events that happened during the 40s and 50s in Europe. Screenwriters managed to create a compelling character that needed to endure many difficulties through his life, as he needed to re-affirm his name in the USA. The director is setting this as a biopic, therefore I was expecting to see all the main important parts of this fictional life. But unfortunately I feel that the movie lost its identity halfway through. I can pinpoint the exact moment where things went sideways: there is a scene set in Italy, where the overall mood completely changed and it seemed to watch a different film altogether. The plot never recovered from this mistake. The story is split into four different parts: the first three parts are following the life of László from the 40s until the 60s, and then there is an incredible time jump that brings us directly to the 80s, showing us all the work that the Hungarian architect did in the US. The problem is that the audience never saw what actually happened in those 20 years. The director focused too much on pointless details and it seemed that he remembered that he needed to actually wrap the film somehow. The ending feels rushed and messy.

The movie has good ideas, but it feels very unbalanced towards the end. It is truly a pity, because all the right ingredients are there: incredible cast composed by many great names, wonderful photography, compelling and overall well written story. I am also sure that some of the shots are pretty iconic. Potentially this could have been a modern masterpiece. I strongly believe that considering the nature and the length of the production, this would have worked way better as a limited series of maybe 4-5 episodes. Unfortunately, by the end a lot of things are left unanswered. My final mark is 6.5. I recognized that a lot of effort was made into this project, but potential was wasted.