Original caricature by Jeff York of Guy Pearce and Adrien Brody in THE BRUTALIST (copyright 2025)
Rarely can a film keep you on edge simply through its camera placement, but THE BRUTALIST is one such picture. It doesn’t hurt either that you’re kept in rapt, uneasy attention by shocking performances, a tough script about the immigration experience after WWII, and meticulous direction throughout its 3.5-hour run time. The film is long, presented with a 15-minute intermission, but it never drags. Instead, it’s a constantly gripping take on the battle between art and commerce, war and remembrance, and the brutal realities that get in the way of the American Dream.
Director Brady Corbet and his co-screenwriter Mona Fastvold have written a bruising character study of an uncompromising Jewish architect named Laszlo Tóth (Adrien Brody) who emigrates to the USA after WWII. He arrives without a penny in his pocket but certainly manages to carry a ton of emotional baggage with him. A proud Hungarian and a famed architect back across the pond, Tóth finds America difficult to embrace. He starts at square one because he’s a foreigner and resents such discrimination against him. The best he can do for work is start with an assistant job to his prosperous cousin Atilla (Alessandro Nivola) running a small furniture store. It’s very humbling and Tóth feels the sting of that slight, and every other one lobbied thereafter too.
Tóth has little use for authority in any respect, blaming bureaucrats in Europe for losing track of his Jewish wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), a woman who’s in fragile health. Tóth also feels slighted by Attila’s Catholic wife with her antisemitic slurs, not to mention the judgy prostitutes he visits out of boredom. One hooker even offers to introduce him to a male escort since he seems so uninterested in her seduction. Tóth only truly connects with Gordon (Isaach de Bankolé), a poor black man he meets on a breadline, deemed relatable as a fellow victim.
The prideful architect becomes hostile towards those he feels are holding him back and he almost comes to blows with a wealthy businessman named Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce). Van Buren loudly critiques Tóth’s redesign of his mansion’s library, a job his grown son (Joe Alwyn) hired the immigrant for. Tóth’s temper gets him fired and even later, when Van Buren comes around with a change of heart, Tóth continues to push people away with his need for control. He’s handed a huge assignment to build a community center by Van Buren, yet the architect will continuously have trouble keeping his arrogance in check.
Now, if you think watching an architect kvetch over his designs and battle over his artistic vision sounds dull, you would be wrong. THE BRUTALIST turns it all into searing drama. Tóth is cold, tough, and a brutal man to deal with, not dissimilar to the hard-edge, cemented designs he creates, but his story is a fascinating study of the drive to make a difference and the struggle to stay out of your way. Even when things go Tóth’s way – with Van Buren giving him plenty of leeway in concepts and calendar, and his imminent reunion with his wife – the artist still finds it difficult to take a victory lap. Tóth is almost an antihero in his own hero’s journey; a bitter misanthrope, frowning, furrowing, dancing constantly towards the edge of the abyss.
Still, Corbet never lets his characters or narrative become broad. Instead, the story finds nuance, subtlety, and even some mystery in all that’s going on, let alone what people are thinking, or how they’ll react to the drama in their midst.
Lol Crawley’s intimate camerawork underlines the inner conflict in Tóth, sometimes straightforward, sometimes cocked and askew. The insinuating score by Daniel Blumberg echoes Tóth’s varying moods and degrees of angst. Brody plays much of his character close to the vest, not giving too much away at any given moment. Still, he’s not portraying Tóth as an enigma, but rather, as someone who chooses to hold back due to trust issues. The more we watch Tóth in action, the more we wonder what is going on inside his tortured mind. Survivor’s guilt? Scandalous secrets? Nightmare of past torture in the camps? Is he a closeted homosexual? THE BRUTALIST is smart enough to leave the audience to draw up its conclusions without spoon-feeding. It makes for a rather complex film, one that at times can be quite challenging, but one that nonetheless demands we pay attention and think along with it.
Brody’s never been finer onscreen, and all of his costars excel too, particularly Jones who’s quiet and calm in the eye of Tóth’s storm. Even more impressive is Pearce, endlessly fierce and funny as the egomaniacal mover and shaker. The production design and special effects team work together beautifully to create the behemoth buildings Tóth is building and they’re never less than entirely believable as genuine structures. Also, the sound design mixes all kinds of peripheral noises and eerie moments of silence to keep us leaning in as they ratchet up the tension in the final act.
Some may find it hard to embrace such a tough character or chilly movie. Still, like other great films about the business of America being business (CITIZEN KANE, EXECUTIVE SUITE, THE GODFATHER) this is a harsh critique of bullying America and its unrelenting goal to lord over others. And in such means to the end, art can be crushed by business, ethics are negotiable, and a good man can lose himself in the climb up the ladder. These are tough lessons for sure, all expertly dramatized in this epic character study of Tóth and America.
It’s an often brutal depiction. And it makes for an enthralling film.
