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Risen from the rubble of the Second World War, brutalist architecture is clean and simple. Its monochrome palette and minimal use of materials allows for creative exploration of space, shapes and structure.
However, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist falls short of its architectural namesake’s subtle beauty.
Instead, the nearly four-hour film delivers a story devoid of sentiment outside of its main character’s trauma. The fictional story of László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect who immigrates to the United States during the Second World War, is buried beneath suffering and despair.
However, the film largely ignores his life experience as a Holocaust survivor, as co-writers Corbet and Mona Fastvold focus on suffering inflicted by people that Tóth encounters in America.
If the pain and dissatisfaction that Tóth endures is meant to represent the falsehoods of the American Dream (one of the film’s first and most striking shots by cinematographer Lol Crawley is an upside-down Statue of Liberty), the trauma feels less metaphorical and more emotionally manipulative of its audience.
Adrien Brody, who plays Tóth, is given little to work with beyond his character’s despair. Brody excels while depicting Tóth’s unravelling psyche as he spirals while integrating into America, with his tormented cries and an upset, forlong gaze. But somewhere between the suffering and havoc, any semblance of Tóth’s character growth is swallowed by a lacking backstory and no details about the origin of his architectural talents.
The lack of detail afforded to Tóth diminishes him to nothing more than a victim of grave misfortunes. This leaves Brody with little opportunity for acting range throughout the film.
Brody’s Oscar nomination – one of The Brutalist’s 10 total — has less to do with his performance and more to do with his cinematic comeback. He’s spent the majority of the 2000s in ensemble-led Wes Anderson films.
Similarly sidelined in Hollywood is Guy Pearce. In his role, he is reduced to playing an exceedingly villainous millionaire, Harrison Lee Van Buren, whose sole purpose is to build Tóth up and break him down in extraordinary fashion. Tóth first encounters Lee Van Buren after being hired to redesign his home library.
Months after its completion, the tycoon hires Tóth to construct a sprawling community centre as a tribute to Lee Van Buren’s late mother, which becomes increasingly extravagant as the bricks are laid.
Constantly overseeing the construction is the similarly vile Harry Lee Van Buren, the son of the wealthy patriarch. Joe Alwyn provides a weak and unconvincing portrayal of the ridiculous character, who exists little outside of his disturbing, off-putting nature.
In emotional commotion offsite, Tóth routinely sends letters to his wife, Erzsébet, whom he lost contact with after being separated during the war. Similar to Brody, in her role as Erzsébet, a satisfactory Felicity Jones has minimal depth and background gifted to her character’s journey.
The lasting impacts of the atrocities both Tóths experienced are more visible in Erzsébet’s niece, Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), who is mute for the majority of the film due to unprocessed trauma. As a clear central figure in the Tóths’ lives, her characterization could have benefited from substance beyond her familial connection. With little personality to explore, most of Cassidy’s acting is done through subdued facial expressions and eye movements.
One of the film’s strong suits is Daniel Blumberg’s score, both ambitious and inspiring with its sonorous brass and piano during the film’s most pivotal turning points. Less brilliant and succinct is the movie’s inconsistent and choppy editing, with multiple jump cuts and continuity errors abound.
Lost in the confounding edits is the inconsistent timeline, which fails to allocate space to get to know the characters beyond their trauma. The frequent time jumps come off as disingenuous and rushed, as we are pushed through the character’s lives at such a fast pace we aren’t able to see all sides of them, or come to understand their intricacies.
This disingenuity – which bled into the film’s foundation with the creators’ admitted AI usage – is ironic, considering The Brutalist’s towering depiction of architecture in all its glory.
But while brutalism is quietly sophisticated and an iconic architectural style still standing against the test of time, The Brutalist is soon to crumble in cinematic history.
Featured image by IMDb.
