By Bob Grimm
Regular readers know that I declared The Brutalist to be the best picture of 2024 a few weeks back in my year-end wrap up.
Now that it is getting a wider release along with its 10 recently announced Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, let me count the ways in which I love this movie.
As you watch The Brutalist, you’ll realize you are seeing genius and historic filmmaking in progress—a sprawling, majestic, 3 1/2-hour epic in which every frame is well-played. Adrien Brody—in a year when Timothy Chalamet sang, learned guitar and played harmonica winningly as Bob Dylan in A Complete Unknown—deserves a second Oscar for this one.
The Brutalist is still playing this week at The Tower Theater in Sacramento and The Varsity Theater in Davis.
Laszlo (Brody), a Holocaust survivor, makes his way to the United States after the war. He’s not necessarily looking to live the American dream; he’s just looking to live without hellish oppression. An architect by trade, he endures a series of growing tribulations as he tries to reunite with his wife, Erzsebet (Felicity Jones, also Oscar-nominated), and survive New York City.
Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce, also nominated)—Laszlo’s first major client, an incredibly moody man—becomes his boss, and Laszlo is tasked with building a large memorial on a beautiful parcel of land. Laszlo must fight to bring his European sensibilities (a unique, maverick design style that got him the gig) to the project as Harrison oscillates between sweet, pioneering/bohemian spirit and cost-cutting, raging asshole.
This is 2024’s best onscreen battle, far more engaging and terrifying than anything in Gladiator 2. It’s also heartbreaking, because there’s the tease of genuine admiration and friendship in Harrison, something Laszlo needs after all of his trauma. As Laszlo finds out through the course of many years, for him, trauma is routine.
Laszlo and Erzsebet persist, no matter what evil mind games and betrayals those surrounding them serve up, and as you’d expect, the film gets downbeat at times. Attila (the vastly undervalued Alessandro Nivola, delivering career-best work), a kindly relative, shelters Laszlo at first and gives him a place to practice his trade and live. What seems to be a core relationship that will drive the film progressively morphs into something more somber. The adversity Laszlo faces is brutal, indeed.
There’s much ballyhoo about this film’s budget being less than $10 million, and there should be. How director Brady Corbet managed to make a movie that looks like this—while procuring such an amazing cast and capturing such magical performances—on such a small budget by today’s standards is a modern-day moviemaking miracle.
There have been recent controversies regarding the use of AI software to sharpen some of the audio (specifically, moments when Brody and Jones are speaking Hungarian), leading some to diminish the accomplishment that is The Brutalist. This is total bullshit. Special effects have been used to embellish and strengthen visuals and audio since the beginning of the film art. Whatever they did to improve the sound and visuals works in a way that is seamless and provides no distraction from the power of the performances.
Now, this film a long one. You will get an intermission for a bathroom break, so locate the restroom before the movie starts, and have a plan. As with all long movies, if you are not vibing with the film, three hours and 34 minutes can be a slog. Be prepared.
Director Brady Corbet, Brody, Jones, Pearce and much of the crew deserve Oscars for the spectacle that is The Brutalist. I’m not predicting wins for them just yet—Oscar picks can get really screwy—but the nominations are much-deserved. This is one of the best films of the 21st century.
For more information on Sacramento’s Tower Theater, where ‘The Brutalist’ is currently playing, see SN&R’s feature story ‘Neon City Lights.’
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