Brady Corbet Swings for the Fences in This Masterpiece About the American Nightmare
I’ll admit that I was ULTRA hyped about “The Brutalist” coming into it. I’d heard comparisons to the type of Horror of the American Dream movies like “The Godfather” and my all time fave movie, “There Will Be Blood”. As I hyped as I was, though, I tried to approach my seeing it with some sanity.
But dammit, it was so so good.
Yet while it met my expectations of being just a master class in all phases, directing and writing and acting and sound (the score is LEGENDARY), it still turned out to be a much different movie than I thought it’d be.
The story of a Hungarian Jewish man named Lazlo Toth (in a performance that might win Adrian Brody an Oscar), “The Brutalist” follows Toth as he is given an “opportunity” to grow in America by magnate Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce absolutely tearing it up). But what “The Brutalist” wants to show you is the falsehood of the American Dream for immigrants, and how, despite what America advertises, America can be an absolute nightmare for people we deem as “not like us.”
Everything is fully realized here. Actor turned director Brady Corbet directs with such seamless confidence that I could’ve watched this movie for ANOTHER 3.5 hours (it flies by, and the classical 15 minute intermission helps), and with amazing visual chutzpah, with the movie shot in 70mm VistaVision. All of the actors came to play with career best work, including Felicity Jones as Lazlo’s wife, Erzsebet, and the script is detailed and thorough.
Corbet takes some huge tonal and plot swings in the second half, but despite how jarring they can be, for me they all worked, because they tie in perfectly with the themes of the movie, which are represented by one of the the movie's first lines, and one of its last:
“None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who think they are free.”
“It’s not about the journey for some people, only about the destination.”
The journey is brutal for some, and that’s what “The Brutalist” is all about, and dammit it’s impressive.