REVIEW: The Brutalist

Good performances and production can't save this long, flawed miss.

The title of this film is a reference to brutalist architecture. I like architecture, but I don’t pretend to have more than an esthetic grasp of it.

That said, in general, I hate brutalist architecture. It’s all concrete blocks, lack of windows… To me it’s post-WWII Soviet-style sadness. And yet, I had an open mind on the architectural style and the movie, especially since Adrien Brody won best actor for his performance.

Getting through the 3.5+ hours I have gained a tiny bit of respect for the brutalist style but nothing for the movie. This is a film that aspires for some sort of greatness, but drops the ball in the execution.

In broad strokes — László Tóth (Brody) has escaped Nazi Hungary and made it to America. He was a renowned architect and finds out his wife is alive in Europe and wants to get her back. There are great moments in the first act that made me cry — this isn’t a terrible movie by any means.

There was also good antagonist — a benefactor who wants Laszlo to build a great community center/church on a hill — and the struggle of that. It makes up the second and (almost all) of the third act.

There are a lot of themes touched upon and explored. But, in 3.5+ hours none of them are either resolved or brought to conclusion to dictate further thought. I have no problem with a good, 3-hour plus movie. But, about an hour into this all the scenes were breathing way too much. Do you really need to show every step up the stairs…

It’s all too much. And it doesn’t work.

Spoiler Alert: It literally throws away all the plot of 3+ hours with a totally un-answering epilogue. The Brutalist feels like a 4-5 hour limited series forced into a movie edited down to keep the boring and lose the good.

There’s no denying that Adrien Brody is great. He hits every mark and he hits some great marks. As ungrounded as the movie script gets — his performance manages to keep the whole thing from totally going off the rails. Felicity Jones gives a great performance — the heart of the 2nd and 3rd acts.

But the sum of the good parts simply don’t come together for a good film.

I could pick apart some other things that don’t work (the score, for one) but they could have easily been overlooked if not for the larger structural flaws. If the actors or subject matter strikes you, it’s not like The Brutalist isn’t worth your time.

Just set expectations accordingly.