A Hungarian architect emigrates to the US where he falls under the
influence of a wealthy industrialist.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Brady Corbet
Starring: Adrien Brody, Guy Pearce, Felicity Jones, Joe Alwyn, Stacy Martin, Alessandro Nivola, Isaach de
Bankolé, Raffey Cassidy, Emma Laird
Originating in baseball, the practice of "Moneyball" has spread to other
sports. It involves sporting teams acquiring players by looking beyond the
obvious stars and finding those athletes who consistently perform and yet
might be available for an affordable price. In casting
Adrien Brody and Guy Pearce as the leads in his third and
finest film, The Brutalist, Brady Corbet appears to have taken his cues from the Moneyball
system. Brody and Pearce are as fine a pair of actors as you'll find
working in English language cinema today, and yet despite the acclaim they
received early in their careers they've spent much of the last two decades
languishing in the unappreciated realm of straight to VOD movies. Like the
envious rival coaches who wish they had snagged a pair of overlooked
players now taking their team to a championship title, a lot of filmmakers
will be looking at the performances of Brody and Pearce here and kicking
themselves for ignoring them for so long.
Corbet's employment of a pair of under-appreciated men mirrors the theme
of his film. It's about a talented man who finds himself at his lowest ebb
only to be given a chance to return to the top by someone who recognises
his talent. But it's also about someone who recognises that he can acquire
that talent at a discount. It's about the commodification of art, and the
great tragedy that those who can afford to foster art usually don't
understand it enough to truly appreciate it.
In a call back to his Oscar-winning role in Polanski's
The Pianist, Brody plays another Jewish Holocaust survivor. Having survived a
concentration camp and now faced with Soviet occupation, acclaimed
architect Laszlo Toth flees Hungary for the US, leaving behind his
wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and teenage niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), hoping they will be able to join him at
some point in the future.
On American soil Laszlo heads to a small town in Pennsylvania where his
Americanised cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola) welcomes him into the furniture business he
runs with his gentile wife Audrey (Emma Laird). Attila is clearly
taking advantage of his cousin's talents, employing his design skills to
update his furniture line, but Laszlo is happy enough with the
arrangement. Things take a bad turn when Attila and Laszlo are
approached by Harry Lee Van Buren (Joe Alwyn) and tasked with
giving the library of his father, wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van
Buren (Pearce), a modernist makeover as a surprise while Harrison is
away on business. Laszlo quickly designs and implements a stunning new
version of the library, only to be castigated when Harrison arrives home
earlier than expected and finds his house torn apart. When Harrison
refuses to pay, Attila blames Laszlo and turfs him out onto the
street.
Now working as a coal shoveller, living in a skid row shelter and
addicted to heroin to numb the pain of an injury he received to his nose
during the war, Laszlo is surprised when he's approached by a regretful
Harrison. Having grown to love his new library and now aware of Laszlo's
past life as one of Hungary's most revered architects (known for the
style that gives Corbet's film its title), Harrison pays Laszlo what
he's owed and invites him into his home, even using his political
influence to expedite Erzsébet and Zsófia's entry to the US.
Harrison's true motivation in cosying up to Laszlo is quickly revealed.
The industrialist wants the architect to realise his dream of building a
sprawling community centre in honour of his late mother. Laszlo is
delighted to take on the job, but it becomes a great white elephant, its
construction dragging on across years filled with turmoil. The arrival
of Erzsébet, now confined to a wheelchair with osteoporosis, proves an
unwanted distraction for Laszlo whose relationship with Harrison is
increasingly tested as the men disagree on the details of the community
centre. As tempers flare, Laszlo finds himself increasingly reminded of
his outsider status as a Jewish immigrant.
Corbet and co-writer Mona Fastvold use their film's considerable
running time (215 minutes, including a 15-minute embedded interval) to
delve deep into the eternal conflict between capitalism and creativity.
The blank check Harrison seems to initially promise Laszlo
unsurprisingly turns out to be anything but as Laszlo is expected to cut
artistic corners to save a buck here and there. Laszlo becomes
increasingly maniacal in his determination to build the centre to his
exact specs, causing friction with Erzsébet, who pleads with him to make compromises. It's only in the
film's closing scene that we see the true reason for Laszlo clinging so
doggedly to his specifications.
Presented in VistaVision, a popular format from the 1950s that
emphasises the height of a frame, Corbet's film oozes an epic quality
that exceeds its remarkably low $10 million budget. It's essentially an
intimate drama with a small cast, and yet it feels broad in scope, as
though Corbet is employing the sort of architectural tricks of his
protagonist to create the illusion of extra space. There are
breath-taking sequences, like an opening that begins in the cramped
bowels of a crowded immigrant ship and takes us up to the deck, the
image of the Statue of Liberty suddenly looming above us (albeit upside
down, a portent of Laszlo's American experience to come), or a montage
of a marble quarry in the mountains of Italy, where Laszlo hopes to find
the materials for his centre. In an opening overture,
Daniel Bloomberg's booming score immediately announces that we're
in for a grand experience, and the movie mostly lives up to this
entrance. It's let down somewhat by a final act that feels rushed, as
though a few scenes have been dropped to keep the already notable
running time from getting out of control. There's a shocking act that
occurs too late for the film to really explore its implications, and as
a result it comes off as a cynical attempt to create a cheap talking
point.
For all its epic expanse, The Brutalist keeps us in its
thrall thanks to the performances of Brody and Pearce. The former uses
his famous hangdog features to great effect, his smile stretching across
that VistaVision frame in his highs, his sad eyes tearing us apart in
Laszlo's many lows. Pearce's performance is straight out of a '50s epic,
but it never feels like an impression of this type of character. Where
Brody brings depth to Laszlo, Pearce finds the hollow emptiness of a
soulless man desperate to appear cultured, the sort of man who doesn't
really like movies but owns every entry in the Criterion collection.
When the two are onscreen together it's one of the most compelling
double acts of recent American cinema. Laszlo and Harrison are two men
who have nothing in common other than the uncomfortable fact that they
need one another to achieve their dubious American dreams.
The Brutalist is in UK/ROI
cinemas from January 24th.
