An odyssey spanning several decades as a prolific architect flees post-war Europe and navigates his own legacy amidst being hired by a high profile client…

At its core, cinema is a magic trick showing the audience a card, allowing them to see it, feel it, even hear it as it shuffles back into the deck before a final prestige, a flourish of revelation, transporting them into the land where the card and only the card exists. 

The Brutalist is a magic movie. It is transportive cinema. It is a masterstroke of immersion, a grandiose epic that feels unmatched in its scope yet intimately engrossing all the same. There’s simply not enough praise that can be offered to a film like The Brutalist, a movie so uncompromising in its vision that it bakes itself into the very fabric of film history at its very outset. It sounds like hyperbolic praise, but I know of no other way to express my adoration for The Brutalist. “Is there a better description of a cube than that of its own construction?”

Perhaps the best way to describe The Brutalist is in first identifying the artistry that constructs it. The expansive script from Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold. The triumphant and twisted score from Daniel Blumberg.

The sublime cinematography by Lol Crawley complete with the inspired choice to shoot on Vistavision giving each frame the widest space imaginable for the film to capture the breadth of creativity that occupies architectural landscape and figures at its center, as if to say this is Laszlo’s very own mind sketched out onto this film’s vast canvas.

Much can be said about The Brutalist’s shockingly minimalist budget, but this is a film that could have been made for 100 million and I still would sing its praises. The direction of The Brutalist is sublime as Corbet imbues every scene with dense attention to detail, a historically rich piece of cinema that braves to make each frame feel consequential in its ties to theme, character, and historical context. The scope of Laszlo’s arduous journey in America is monumental, yet as a singular character he feels so flawed and earnestly sympathetic. 

The Brutalist never frowns upon Laszlo’s vices, but it also never shies away from them. We watch as he succumbs to the pressures of drugs and sex, his creative prowess infringing on his ego in ways that may even seem unlikeable at times. This level of flawed characterization only deepens the audience’s admiration of Laszlo. He’s a complex protagonist.

At times, he can even be hard to root for. But he is also wildly empathetic. He is a fighter, a creative trapped as a journeyman campaigning against the odds of an oppressive world to find the source of connective purpose within it. He is self-admonishing (consider one of the film’s very best scenes—a litany to choose from, I know—in which Laszlo lays beside Erzebet in their first reunion) and conflicted about a country that seems hellbent on praising and dismissing him in equal measure.

It should go without saying that Adrien Brody delivers one of the finest performances of this year and perhaps this decade in finding these deep, unruly inner workings of Laszlo and guiding the film through his authentic feelings. The task is insurmountable to a lesser performer as Laszlo is tasked with carrying the film both narratively and spiritually, taking on the brunt of its thematic purpose in every scene.

The supporting cast around Brody, particularly Guy Pearce and Felicity Jones, each manage to assist the Sisyphean effort of carrying this monumental load. But this is Brody’s show, and show he does. It’s virtually impossible to describe the thematic weight of The Brutalist in its entirety by the film’s end. One could glean any number of things from its staggering messages.

The pressures of capitalistic confines that threaten to devour artistry, the wolves in sheep’s clothing and fine suits who value creativity only insofar as they can dominate it, the arduous and never-ending process of integrating into a new society only to be constantly ostracized by the oppressive nature of its people, the list is endless.

Some of these thematic pieces may seem heavy handed for viewers, particularly in the film’s second half as they’re brought more violently into focus. Even the film’s final line is likely to divide many on its meaning. But the best scripts are the ones that lay down the clues for the audience to draw their own conclusions.

Above all messaging, however, one cannot walk away from The Brutalist with any other conclusion than it being a masterpiece of historical fiction. 9.7/10