The Brutalist

I honestly thought I was going to be done posting reviews for about a month or two but every now and then a film moves me in such a way that I can’t help but call it out even if it’s with just a lazy effort on my end. I know that as an artist I’d rather have the audience either love or hate my work; the last thing I want is for them to leave indifferent because that means they’ll completely forget you or the experience soon after. I want a visceral response of some kind, and I truly believe that most artists feel this way as well.

Well, the issue with this is when the world produces hipsters who pretend to be broke when they walk around wearing clothes that are made out of the same material as doilies, but in reality, they’re just trust fund kids who simply want to piss off their parents. These kids sometimes decide to use their money and the connections they have through their parents to make art. And it’s because of these connections that their art gets fast tracked to the mainstream while truly talented artists get left behind. The band The Strokes are the perfect example of this because of their business mogul daddies and all the connections they had. Everyone just completely ignored the fact that their music is basically made up of chords and drum beats you’d learn in your Rock Music 101 class at Jimmy’s Music School in Tallahassee.  Seriously, I made more complicated music on my recorder in first grade! But it is what it is, I accepted the fact that they made the most of the opportunities afforded them and I no longer hold any ill will towards them. But Brady Corbet decided to come along and reignite the fire of hate hate hate within me. He’s the writer and director of Oscar nominated, The Brutalist. And I would assume he switched to writing and directing mainly because he got too Hollywood fat to still be an actor (look up his photos); he was once in the film Thirteen.

He stood up at the Golden Globes and had the audacity, after his film won Best Picture there, to say, “This is why directors should always be in control of the final cut. Everyone kept telling me that no one wanted to see a 3 and a half hour film about a mid-century designer but here we are”. Well Brady, maybe you should’ve listened to your friends and the multi-millionaire producers who have a history of making money after all. And I know producers can suck and will try and cut up your films beyond recognition, but even they realize that trying to make people give up a fourth of their day (when they’re actually awake) to watch a film about a made up architect takes an amount of hubris that this world has yet to see. I mean, seriously, Malcolm X was 3 and a half hours long and that’s Malcolm X! He started a revolution and gave people hope! How dare you try and make me watch a 3 plus hour film about some made up white dude in Black History Month! We are only get 28 days a year, and the one time they recently gave us 29, they released a deadly virus that nearly killed us all called the Killthedarkies Virus, aka the Rona, as a punishment for it! “Give em an extra day and the next thing you know, they’ll want the whole year!”

But whatever, The Brutalist was getting love from every critic imaginable and a story about the immigrant experience sounded really important right now given the climate in America and the dangerous views many people have towards immigrants. So, I decided to give it a chance.

The Brutalist is about Laszlo Toth, a talented architect who fled post-war Europe in 1947 with the hopes of rebuilding his life here in America. His wife and niece are still stuck over there but thankfully they survived the horrors of the Holocaust. He misses them both dearly but tries to get on his feet so that everything is settled for them by the time they make it over. He shacks up with his cousin who has already established a new life here with a woman he met from Connecticut and his custom-made furniture business. Laszlo’s (Adrian Brody) skills as an architect come in handy as it helps him land a big job building a new library for Harrison Van Buren (Guy Pearce); a self-made multi -millionaire who has an estate in Pennsyvania so large that it rivals that of kings in times past.

After a rather awkward initial meeting between the two, Van Buren discovers who Laszlo really is after the design of his now modern library catches the eye of a national publication. His library is not only the talk of the nation but more importantly that of all his uber wealthy friends, friends with connections. One of whom happens to be the lawyer of the Vice President of the United States. This lawyer puts things in motion to help Laszlo’s wife and niece get to the U.S., something that seemed almost impossible before.

And in addition to this, Van Buren is so impressed with Laszlo’s past and current work that he hires him to build an enormous complex that will be open to the public and will also be dedicated to his recently deceased mother. This project, however, is unlike anything Laszlo has ever undertaken but he is supremely confident that he can not only meet Van Buren’s expectations but exceed them!

And this is what the entire first act is, Laszlo finding fortune after struggling to find consistent work while at the same time dealing with being separated from his family and battling an addiction to opium; something that was introduced to him on his journey to America to help deal with an injury he sustained.

So, to this point in the film, it’s actually a well written and well told story; one that’s entertaining and gives you a protagonist to root for. But then the second act arrives and things start to get a little weird. Corbet, staying true to the hipster game, decides that he cant make this like all the other biographies that came before it, he has to throw a wrench or two in there.  

Laszlo’s wife, Erzsebet Toth (Felicity Jones) and his niece Zsofia (Raffey Cassidy) finally arrive but to Laszlo’s surprise, Erzsebet (I’m just gonna call her E from here on because that’s too damn hard to spell) is in a wheelchair. She’s lost functionality in her legs due to malnourishment and this at times causes unbearable pain for her when she tries to sleep at night. This, along with Laszlo’s constant infidelity and worsening drug habit, puts a strain on their marriage and E’’s presence also apparently puts a strain on the relationship between Van Buren and Laszlo.

All of a sudden, Van Buren is making pseudo antisemitic remarks and he hires a consultant to oversee the building of his new complex because he no longer sees Laszlo in the same light. And now Laszlo is not only trying to keep his marriage afloat but he’s also facing the scrutiny of this new overseer as well as the prejudices of the locals who are all Protestant.

Now, there’s certainly nothing wrong with this shift in the story but the problem is that Laszlo no longer feels like a protagonist. He’s now short with everyone he comes into contact with and he continues to seek solace in opium rather than his wife and niece who need him as they try and integrate themselves into this new life.

And as the story progresses you continue to lose respect for Laszlo as he drifts further and further into depravity, so much so that it puts him in a position where he’s ultimately assaulted by someone close to him. But even then, he doesn’t have the courage to stand up to the person, he instead sends his crippled wife to do so which puts her life in danger. Oh, and this all after he nearly kills his wife on accident by feeding her the same drugs he’s hooked on to try and help with her pain.

Now, again, I personally didn’t prefer this story arc but I could still see how it could be appealing to some. But then the last act of the film came and that’s when it completely fell apart.

For some reason, the film simply cuts away from the story’s climax, right in the middle of it (you can debate the reasons why but none of them are sufficient for Corbet doing so) and immediately switches to decades later without explaining why or what happened. And the film’s score, which was excellent up until this point, all of a sudden is modernized and what was once a brilliant four note song, now sounds like video game music for the Sega Genesis version of Night at the Roxbury! I truly wish I was joking but I’m not.

You’re all of a sudden taken to an empty gondola that’s drifting through Venice while this awful music is playing and eventually you wind up at some appreciation ceremony for Laszlo who is now himself wheelchair bound. But for some reason it looks like you’re watching someone’s home video at a fashion runway shoot, and Laszlo’s niece, who used to literally never say a word, is now speaking eloquently about Laszlo and his many accomplishments. And once her speech is over, the film ends. And that’s it! No explanation of what happened to his wife, to his attacker, or anything! Just bad techno music and an empty gondola ride! 3 and a half hours of this seemingly garbage human not having a positive impact on anyone’s life except for that of architecture nerds!

Seriously??? You couldn’t have told this story in under 2 hours? I was so upset at how this film turned and ultimately ended that I was up for another hour too fuming mad to go to sleep. So, it was in that moment that I decided to write this review so that no one else would waste a single second of their lives on this hipster garbage. Go watch an episode of the Boondocks instead if you truly want to know how the immigrant experience has an effect on people!

I give this movie a rating of WACK and you should avoid it at all costs!