Director: Brady Corbet
Cast: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird
Rating: (R16)
★★★+
REVIEWED BY AMASIO JUTEL
Those with any investment in film award culture will have noticed that The Brutalist (Rialto) is quickly picking up steam.
Of "monumental" stature (as the marketing hype insists) in cinematic proficiency and supposed cultural importance, Brady Corbet’s mini-epic tells the story of a mid-century migrant who flees war-torn Hungary and assimilates into a Waspy American family through his architectural novelty, brutalism. In a triumphant, post-war America, he is challenged to create great art while balancing the demands of capital; not reduced only to, but still a prescient metaphor for the toilsome challenge of creating personal art in Hollywood’s studio system.
While The Brutalist is a cinematic marvel for its visionary bravado and the talent of its cast, despite its relatively modest budget, critics and audiences have been quick to laud its themes without interrogating the disjointedness of their depth.
In its 3.5-hour runtime, The Brutalist manages to both rush and drag — seemingly missing certain plot points that would further build out the concepts it is interested in. The brutalism isn’t celebrated by the camera; the protagonist’s actions are all in plain sight; and the plot elements introduced for tension never become tense (because they don’t feel true to the story).
The operatic and arthouse sensibilities lend credence to director Corbet’s claim to an authorial persona, but for a story about architecture, his blueprint is missing a few pages.
