The Brutalist (Corbet, 2024): Picturehouse Central, 6.30pm
Chicago Reader review:
It is a costly affair. The American Dream is a
pact with the devil, and, of course, opportunity comes at a price. Time
and time again, sprawling American epics from The Godfather (1972) to There Will Be Blood (2007) have nailed in the same sinister motifs, so The Brutalist isn’t
necessarily digging up earth-shattering revelations. That said,
director Brady Corbet probes the foundation of the dream, particularly
how this idea is concretized in postwar America. And what’s truly
shocking about The Brutalist is not that it teaches us
something new, but that it presents an America we recognize—hollowed out
yet standing on the same eroded foundations. Its three-and-a-half-hour runtime is dedicated to an atmospheric
exploration of American life—family, legacy, success, you name it—rather
than anything concise. It does, however, set the tone immediately,
commencing with a disorienting, upside-down shot of Lady Liberty as
Adrien Brody’s László Tóth arrives in the United States from the ruins
of WWII. A Hungarian architect and Holocaust survivor, Tóth arrives destitute.
He is only welcomed by his cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola)—who had
Americanized not just his name but his business and his principles.
Given a second chance, Tóth is helped by Attila to secure a job
redesigning the library of Harrison Van Buren, a wealthy plutocrat
played with a nefarious edge by Guy Pearce. Van Buren is initially furious at the two men hired by his foolish
son, Harry (Joe Alwyn). However, after researching Tóth’s esteemed
European background, he has a change of heart. Van Buren proposes Tóth’s
deal with the devil: Tóth will design a monumental community center
featuring a church, library, gymnasium, and auditorium atop a hill in
Pennsylvania. This colossus costs Tóth everything as he battles for his art form
against every odd: a volatile capitalist, drug addiction, and the uphill
revival of his legacy. Like any quintessential American epic, the
relentless pursuit comes at a steep cost to family, unraveling as his
wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), and orphaned niece, Zsófia (Raffey
Cassidy), finally set foot in America. The Brutalist is Corbet’s colossus: it’s a massive American
epic that damns the ground we stand on. Corbet achieves this without
leaning too heavily on his predecessors, instead forging a myth from the
bedrock of this country’s brutal psyche.
Maxwell Raab
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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