The Brutalist

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.

This has a very nice cast and a great underdog premise, but feels a bit over the top with cheap emotional manipulation that detracts from what could have been an epic cinematic achievement.

It really started feeling forced after the halfway point with more and more implausibilities that just shook me out of the story.

The mark of a weak writer is melodrama and excessive salacious story elements, but then it could just be the producers that dictated the addition of the nonsensical scenarios that just had no basis in the reality they established.

The production value is there, the cast is there, the soundtrack is there, but then they had to trot out as many tropes as possible, and by then, the weak resolution is just background noise.

Movie Review: A Disappointing Experience

I had high expectations for this movie, but unfortunately, it turned out to be a disappointing experience. The pacing was painfully slow, making it difficult to stay engaged. Many scenes felt completely unnecessary, dragging the runtime without adding any real value to the story.

From an artistic perspective, the film seemed to rely heavily on overacting, which made the characters feel exaggerated and unrealistic. Instead of enhancing the emotional depth, the performances often came across as forced and distracting.

While the movie seemed to aim for a deeper, artistic message, it failed to deliver it in a coherent way. The narrative lacked clarity, and by the end, I was left wondering what the point of it all was. Overall, it felt like a missed opportunity that could have been so much more with tighter editing and more thoughtful storytelling.

"Brutalist," much like the architectural style it's named after, is imposing, cold, and ultimately, quite boring. This film, which chronicles the decades-spanning career of an ambitious architect, aims for epic grandeur but instead delivers a bloated and convoluted narrative that collapses under its own weight.

While the film boasts a striking visual style, meticulously recreating period details and crafting impressive architectural set pieces, this commitment to aesthetic flourishes comes at the expense of a compelling story. We are presented with a series of loosely connected vignettes, each more ponderous than the last, detailing the triumphs and tribulations of a man more cipher than character.

The film's central problem is its length. Clocking in far too long, "Brutalist" feels like a never-ending tour of a building you've already seen every corner of. The complicated, multi-stranded plot, only adds to the confusion, leaving the audience struggling to piece together a narrative that feels unnecessarily fragmented.

Ultimately, "Brutalist" is a classic case of style over substance. It's a film that clearly prioritizes visual spectacle over emotional resonance, leaving the viewer feeling impressed but ultimately detached. It's a beautifully constructed edifice with nothing inside, a testament to the fact that even the most impressive facade can't mask a hollow core. This film is less a moving story and more an endurance test, a stark reminder that bigger isn't always better, and that sometimes, less is truly more. Save your time and admire a well-designed building instead.

'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.