Brady Corbet’s epic The Brutalist is one of the Academy Awards frontrunners for Best Picture, and Best Actor for Adrien Brody for his portrayal of architect László Tóth as it leaves a lasting impression of the trauma and struggle of reintegrating into World War II left on its survivors.
The film is a whopping three and a half hours long and contains many harrowing scenes of Tóth’s life as he leaves post-World War II Hungary for America, seeking a new home and aiming to be reunited with his wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy).
A thematically complex film, The Brutalist touches on issues of identity, faith, education, and the migrant experience.
Indeed, identity forms a key theme throughout the film—what it means to belong and be accepted by a community.
László does not belong in America—he is othered by the way he speaks, his accent, his Jewish heritage and even though is an accomplished architect but is still denigrated for aspects of who he is.
In one scene, after many setbacks and humiliations, including a sexual assault which may distress viewers, László angrily decries to Erzsébet “they do not want us here”—and he is correct.
But as a Jew he was also unwanted in Hungary and was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp under Nazi occupation.
The Brutalist never shows atrocities of the Holocaust or László’s own encampment but the impact on him is evident.
Viewers see signs of post-traumatic stress disorder which progress as the film continues, we understand he is different than who he was before.
László does manage to establish a small, though still isolated, community: he has one friend, Gordon (Isaach de Bankolé), whom he met in a line for a food bank and with whom he does heroin; his wife Erzsébet, whose osteoporosis leaves her wheelchair bound and in pain; and niece Zsófia, who is mainly mute and acts as a nursemaid to Erzsébet.
At work, he is surrounded by those who hate him for his background and his talents, who hate him because he is foreign, who hate him because he is not Protestant.
The Brutalist is split into three parts: The Enigma of Arrival, which spans from 1947-1952, The Hard Core of Beauty, covering 1953-1960, and an epilogue set in 1980.
The first section of the film covers László’s move to America, landing first in New York City before relocating to Philadelphia, where he lives briefly with his cousin, working in his furniture shop.
While there, he attracts the attention of local rich boy Harry Van Buren (Joe Alwyn), son of industrialist Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce), and renovates Harrison’s study into a modern, spartan, reading space in the style of Brutalism, linked with the Bauhaus art school he attended before the war.
However, Harrison is furious upon seeing the completed work leading Harry to not pay for the renovation, thus kicking off a woe-filled chain reaction for László.
Years later, Harrison finds László again, saying the renovation has been much acclaimed and requests he build a community centre in the name of his late mother, which will contain an auditorium, gymnasium, library, and chapel.
Much of the second segment of the film surrounds the construction of this institute while exploring the personal lives of the Tóths as they struggle to integrate, even after many years of living in America.
Identity here is key too: the facility does not know what it is and Harrison does not know either—he knows he wants László to make something and suggests an auditorium, and then a gymnasium because he did wrestling as a teenager, and then a library is added in, and finally it is a funding requirement there be a chapel.
László accepts the project and begins building immediately, insistent at all points of creation the design is his, even forfeiting his fee to make sure.
The building itself is sprawling and meticulously designed, taking care to project elements of a faith László does not belong to and containing long unnecessary tunnels underneath.
In The Brutalist, the personal is political, László’s works are an external projection of how he feels—there is no warmth or invitation in brutalist architecture, with its harsh lines, concrete structures, and minimalistic style.
Distinctly unfriendly and hostile, Brutalist architecture is as disconnected from its surroundings as László is to his.
And yet there is love here: in the meticulous drawings of designs, in the mock-ups, in the meaning of the institute, reaching far beyond Harrison’s half-baked idea to honour his deceased mother.
The institute here shows how László loves—and who he loves as it revealed poignantly in the epilogue.
There is much buzz around The Brutalist and deservedly so, Brody is at the top of his game once more in a way viewers have not seen since The Pianist–which also has Brody play the role of a Jewish man attempting to reintegrate into post-war society.
The Pianist is an Oscar winning movie and indeed landed Brody his first, for now his only, Academy Award.
But it was marred by controversy—the director infamously fled Europe to escape statutory rape charges after assaulting a 13-year-old girl.
The bad luck, it seems, has followed Brody as The Brutalist is now embroiled in its own scandal, even if the stakes are much lower this time around.
The film has been accused of using generative AI technology to fix the pronunciation of the Hungarian and to bring the Institute at the centre of the film to life.
The Brutalist editor Dávid Janscó admitted in an interview with Red Shark Media the technology was used to fix the Hungarian spoken in the film and create additional works of László’s in the showcase in the film’s epilogue.
This may have an impact on the future of The Brutalist in the Oscars race, which is heating up as fellow frontrunning nominees Emilia Pérez and Conclave have also been the cause of public outrage.
Emilia Pérez has come under fire for its use of AI to fix dialogue and been damaged after disparaging tweets by lead Karla Sofia Gascón resurfaced—including one trashing Emilia Pérez co-star Selena Gomez.
Conclave drew ire from Catholics for its portrayal of the cardinals as well as a twist at the very end of the film.
The Brutalist is rated MA15+ and is in cinemas now.