The Brutalist
2024
****½
Director: Brady Corbet
Cast: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Stacy Martin, Alessandro Nivola, Raffey Cassidy, Jonathan Hyde, Isaach De Bankolé, Anton Lesser
When László Toth, a visionary Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor, flees post-war Europe to America, his struggles are not over. Things start to look brighter when his wife Erzsébet finally joins him and a wealthy industrialist hires him to design a community center. Brady Corbet's epic and spectacular 3½-hour immigrant story chronicles the peaks and valleys of the American Dream. First it giveth, then it taketh away. America gives László and Erzsébet a lifeline, but they never feel truly welcome in their new home. This story feels authetically recreated yet timely, amidst the resurgence of racism and anti-semitism in the US. Adrien Brody's heartfelt lead performance, Lol Crawley's majestic cinematography, which uses the forgotten VistaVision format, and Daniel Blumberg's terrifically powerful score all won Academy Awards.
