The Brutalist
Directed by Brady Corbet
Written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold
Starring Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pierce, Joe Alwyn
Rated R
Runtime: 3 hours, 35 minutes
In New York and LA, IMAX release in January

by Billie Anderson, Staff Writer

“When dogs get sick, they often bite the hand of those who fed them, until someone mercifully puts them down.”

From its opening VistaVision logo–the first film shot entirely in the format since 1961’s One-Eyed Jacks–to its overture, The Brutalist makes a bold declaration: this is capital-C cinema, the kind of grand Hollywood epic that disappeared decades ago with the likes of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate and Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America. It knows this and it wants you to know it the second it starts. Brady Corbet’s latest film is a meditation on the American Dream–a monolith rising from dust and rubble, its foundation soaked in blood, sweat, and tears. At 215 minutes, projected in 70mm, the only way The Brutalist could feel more audacious is by being even longer.

The film begins with the narration of a letter written by a woman separated from her husband during the Holocaust. Trapped in bureaucratic limbo in Budapest, she is left behind while he escapes to America. In one of the year’s most stunning opening sequences, a mass of refugees crowds the dark, chaotic belly of a ship as it approaches New York City. Her letter, read aloud in a measured, formal tone, contrasts starkly with the visceral frenzy on screen. This dissonance between sound and image–one of Corbet’s recurring techniques–culminates as the camera breaks into the open air, revealing the Statue of Liberty towering and inverted from the ship’s vantage point. This will be symbolic, but it takes nearly the full 215 minutes to realize the implications of that framing choice. This film has enough visual and aural density in its opening moments to generate its own gravity.

On every technical level, Corbet’s film delivers: bold analog cinematography with meticulously crafted lighting and blocking, richly textured period locations spanning post-war Europe and pre-suburban America, a haunting score, and universally stellar performances.

The Brutalist is an immigrant story, charting a journey across the frigid waters of the Atlantic–from the shadows of post-war Hungary to the promise of Philadelphia’s countryside. Adrien Brody stars as Laszlo Toth, a brilliant architect whose escape to America carries the weight of unimaginable loss: his family remains behind in Hungary, victims of the Holocaust. Brody delivers one of his finest performances, surpassing even his Oscar-winning turn in The Pianist. Every frame of his performance brims with lived emotion; he disappears into the role, embodying Toth’s torment and genius with quiet intensity.

Laszlo’s early years in America are defined by struggle. Cramped into a closet in his cousin’s home, he starts designing furniture for his cousin’s fledgling business. From the outset, the film highlights the harsh reality that the American Dream often falls short of its promises, with Toth’s journey beginning under anything but ideal circumstances.

Toth’s work eventually draws the attention of Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a wealthy and calculating man who commissions him to design a Brutalist-style church for a growing industrial community outside Philadelphia. Van Buren’s motivations are clear, yet hollow: to erect a monument to his late mother and cement his family’s legacy. Hiring a struggling Toth serves Van Buren’s interests on two fronts: he can appear benevolent by supporting an immigrant’s American Dream while exploiting vulnerability to his own advantage. The cost of this arrangement is not merely financial, but lies in the many ways ambition, art, and the patronage of the New World operate as a quiet form of tyranny. Capital–and those who wield it–have an unrelenting hunger. America, for all its promises, is a land equally defined by opportunity and exploitation.

Spanning nearly 50 years, the story explores the complex relationship between the Toths and the Van Burens, marked by conflict, betrayal, and the compromises inherent in an ambitious mega-project. The film itself, about art and architecture and family and money, passion and addiction, is an act of wieldy design, worthy of its expansive subject matter. Yet, the story manages to feel both familiar and unpredictable at once. This might be the real genius here: there is enough movie here that the big canvas makes loads of time for real intimacy and human grace.

In other reviews and even on the film’s poster, The Brutalist is described as monumental. To me, however, this moment–the reflection of the Statue of Liberty–represents the true monument. It reflects the American Dream back to the audience with such forceful clarity that there is no mistaking the film’s message. By relegating this iconic symbol to the periphery, Corbet transforms it from an emblem of liberty into something more ambiguous–an image that encapsulates both the allure and the alienation of migration, and the fraught relationship between aspiration and reality.

The Brutalist is, on paper, an intimidating proposition: a 215-minute odyssey following an architect’s decades-long journey through the trials of building a life in a new country (good luck convincing your mother to go to this with you on Christmas Day, I know I’ve been trying). It is a towering achievement in filmmaking, the kind that feels almost blasphemous to encounter in today’s contemporary cinema. I find myself joining the chorus of critics declaring that a film like this simply should not exist–and yet, it does. And in its existence, it makes me feel small, as if everything I’ve ever created pales in comparison to Corbet’s Promethean ambition.

The film is split into two distinct halves, separated by a fifteen-minute intermission, each evoking a different era of filmmaking. The first half is a narratively-driven pursuit of the American Dream, documenting Laszlo’s initial struggles as he arrives in America and navigates his relationships with its people, its culture, and the unrelenting class divide between rich and poor. It is deliberately propulsive, a forward motion toward the crux of the story’s tension.

The second half, in contrast, takes on a more meditative, introspective tone. By this point, Laszlo has achieved significant milestones, and the focus shifts inward–to his vices, his tormented soul, and the enigma of his own hubris. It feels slower, darker, and more intimate, unraveling the complexities of Laszlo’s relationship with the American Dream. Here, the narrative loosens its grip, allowing space for reflection on ambition, sacrifice, and the haunting toll of success. Rather than driving toward a tidy conclusion, the second half lingers in the tension between aspiration and disillusionment, capturing the raw humanity of a man grappling with the costs of his own vision. And perhaps my opinions on the ending differ from most critics, but the epilogue provides no catharsis that the previous 200 minutes built up to–a choice I feel was deliberate. “It’s the destination, not the journey” is said directly into the camera, undermining Toth’s treatment as an immigrant in favor of his success as an architect. He’s one of us–he succeeded in the core beliefs of the American Dream–what he has had to experience to achieve it is unimportant, even though we know it’s everything.

While I’m not often inclined to highlight specific moments in film reviews–I’d rather you experience them on your own–my favorite cinematic moment this year (aside from the opening of The Brutalist) comes later in the film, when Laszlo catches another glimpse of the Statue of Liberty. This time, it appears distant, shrouded in haze, and markedly small against the vast expanse of the horizon. Its diminishment in the frame visually represents the shifting weight of hope and aspiration in Laszlo’s journey. The monument, which once loomed large as a beacon of possibility, now feels remote–almost unattainable. The Statue’s shrinking presence mirrors Laszlo’s growing disillusionment, as the promise of his rightful place in America becomes increasingly overshadowed by the sacrifices and losses he endures.

That said, Corbet seems more at ease working on the monumental scale of the "American Dream" than in exploring the minute, personal desires of his characters. As the film progresses, the characters increasingly transform into symbols of larger ideologies–representations of social movements or political ideas–rather than fully realized individuals with nuanced emotions and experiences. This tendency toward abstraction sometimes strengthens the film's thematic concerns but risks distancing the audience from the characters' humanity.

Ultimately, The Brutalist relies heavily on how much you connect with its cast in their respective roles. As a #1 Adrien Brody fan and a close #3 on the Guy Pearce fan list, I was excited to dive in. I was also pleasantly surprised–maybe even floored—by Joe Alwyn. Having just been introduced to him in Kinds of Kindness (I wasn’t sure what to expect, with the Taylor Swift of it all), I was impressed by how much he brought to the film. However, I have a more complicated relationship with Felicity Jones in that I am yet to see her in something I really love her in. Unfortunately, this film didn’t do much to improve that. Her accent work felt unconvincing, and I found her character frustrating–which made her powerful and crucial moments later in the film less satisfying for me than they might have been for someone who doesn’t share these feelings. I want to note that this has very little to do with the character itself and far more to do with Jones’s performance. I think Erzsébet is an interesting and fleshed-out character, even though I have issues with how disability is portrayed in her storyline–something I don’t have time to dive into here.

The film’s (somewhat vague, somewhat minor) exploration of Zionism and the idea of Israel as a promised land for Jewish people facing persecution in America complicates the central narrative–I’m still undecided on whether this choice works for or against the film. A project of this scale and ambition should, I think, engage with this topic, but I’m uncertain whether enough was done to fully explore it. Throughout the film, the promise of a new beginning–whether in the context of the American Dream or the idealized vision of Israel–serves as a symbol of salvation for those seeking refuge from oppression. However, as the story progresses toward its conclusion, Corbet avoids offering easy resolutions or clear answers. I don’t believe there are easy resolutions or clear answers, but the one scene where Corbet addresses this question leaves me with more concerns than clarity.

This is a particularly challenging aspect of the film, and if media literacy isn't dead, audiences may struggle with it. The question arises: what do we do when a film highlights the complexity of Israel as the "homeland" for Jewish people, especially when we’re also confronted with the treatment of Jewish immigrants in America? Audiences witness why many Jewish Americans turn to ideologies like Zionism over the course of The Brutalist, but Corbet also shows that those who suffer are not ready to forget their lineage–in the case of the Toths, no connection to Israel. It’s a difficult but necessary conversation about the promises we create–whether in the form of land, identity, or ideology–and the costs those promises carry.

The Brutalist is a film that feels as if it has inspired everything that came before it, while simultaneously being unlike anything I’ve ever seen. With its lengthy runtime and the outpouring of support (because people love to rally against anything deemed The Best Film of the Year), I can't help but feel anxious that it might not find success in mainstream cinemas. At the same time, I'm excited to experience it again. And I'm sure my friends are eagerly awaiting the moment I stop talking about it (I won’t).