Adrien Brody in Brady Corbet's epic Immigrant

The past comes back to life as an entire world envelops it The BrutalistBrady Corbet's third feature film, novelistic and refined, about a man of genius who savors the American dream but also feels the burning humiliation of a conditional welcome that turns cold. While there are echoes of The wonderful sourceThis gripping story of a brilliant Bauhaus-trained Hungarian-Jewish architect who survives World War II and starts a new life in Pennsylvania is an original and provocative novel.

Written by Corbet with his partner and frequent collaborator Mona Fastvold, The Brutalist is closer to the fermenting ideas and dark vision of power in the director's debut film, The Childhood of a Leadercompared to his more polarizing disquisition on contemporary celebrities, Vox Lux. But it represents a huge leap in perspective from both, taking in such substantial themes as creativity and compromise, Jewish identity, architectural integrity, the immigrant experience, the arrogant isolation of privilege, and the long reach of the past.

It is said to be the first American film produced entirely in VistaVision since One-Eyed Jack in 1961 it was previewed at the Venice Film Festival in 70mm format, a gigantic canvas amply justified by the varied plots of the narration.

Running three and a half hours, including an intermission with entr'acte, the gripping film offers Adrien Brody his best role in years as a talented architect. László Tóth, introduced to the world of fortune by a wealthy tycoon eager to finance his dream project and then brutally downsized when his patron is not satisfied.

Brody pours himself into the character with bristling intelligence and inner fire, holding nothing back as he viscerally conveys both exultant highs and heartbreaking aches. His exacting accent work alone is a measure of his commitment to the bold project.

The opening jolts us immediately into anxious involvement as László is pushed around in a crowded train carriage, the shuddering sound design suggesting the nightmare of his ordeal. Over the turbulent strains of Daniel Blumberg’s powerful score, we hear voice-over letters from the architect’s wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), from whom he was separated during internment, detailing her situation in a refugee camp in Hungary with László’s niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy). László is soon aboard a ship bound for America, with plans for Erzsébet and Zsófia to follow.

Arrival scenes at Ellis Island are a staple of immigrant dramas, but cinematographer Lol Crawley’s unsettling angles of the Statue of Liberty as it looms into view seem to presage both the euphoria of liberation and the challenges to come. The blank stares of the assembled passengers, barely able to follow the English instructions of port officials, provide a haunting image of a people for whom freedom comes with fear.

After a quick and particularly graphic encounter with an immigrant prostitute, László travels to Pennsylvania, the industrial capital. He is warmly reunited with his cousin Attila, played by Alessandro Nivola with subtle indications of a brotherly generosity that has limits. The erasure of the old world is evident in his moderate accent, his blonde shiksa wife Audrey (Emma Laird), and the name of the childless couple's furniture store, Miller & Sons: “People here like a family business.” He even converted to Catholicism before he married.

Potentially high-profile new client Harry (Joe Alwyn) hires Miller & Sons to redesign the gloomy library in his family’s gated mansion as a surprise for his father, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), who is away on business. Attila assigns the project to László, and the architect hires young, single black father Gordon (Isaach De Bankolé), whom he met on a begging mission, as a construction laborer. The architect’s perfectionism causes delays, but the resulting transformation creates a haven of serenity and light, with the room’s prized collection of first editions cleverly protected from harm.

Van Buren Sr.'s reaction is not the surprise his son expected. Unimpressed with the new library, he is furious to find his house ransacked and “a nigger” on his property, firing the contractors in a fit of screaming rage.

When Harry refuses to pay for the damage to the roof, Attila blames his cousin. Audrey has already pushed László to leave since he allegedly committed a transgression during a drunken night at home. Attila uses that tension as further justification to kick him out. He ends up in a safehouse with Gordon, taking construction jobs to survive and using opium to numb the pain of his war wounds.

László is surprised when Harrison shows up at a construction site, brandishing a copy of I wait magazine with a series of photos calling the library a triumph of minimalist design. The industrialist has a research folder on the architect, including photos of notable proto-brutalist buildings he designed before the war. Since the Reich considered the work of László and his colleagues “unGermanic,” he was moved to near tears, having assumed that all the photographs had been destroyed.

That scene is one of many in which László's emotional response to architecture indicates the director's kindred passion for the art form in relation to his time. The fictional protagonist was partly inspired by the life of Marcel Breuer, with Louis Kahn and Mies van der Rohe also among Corbet and Fastvold's references.

Harrison sends a car to László the following Sunday, as he is staggering home from a night of excess; he finds himself at a formal luncheon, where a Jewish lawyer offers to help Erzsébet and Zsófia reach America. The guests are then instructed to follow Harrison as he leads them into the blistering cold atop a hill overlooking all of Doylestown. He shares his vision of a vast community center to be designed by László, which will be installed in a guesthouse on the property while the work is underway.

Financial compensation and artistic opportunity mark a turning point in the story, as does the arrival of Erzsébet and Zsófia, the former physically destroyed by war and famine and the latter initially mute by the horrors she has experienced. But almost from the beginning, László's dream project is fraught with difficulties, each one chipping away at his sense of control and his ego.

Having Harry, who makes no effort to hide his dislike for László, oversee the work is only an inconvenience at first. But when a contractor and another architect are called in to assess costs and city planning officials start making demands, László feels forced to cover the budget overruns with his fee. The project is stalled by a train accident involving a train delivering materials, arousing a strong reminder of Harrison's anger at their first meeting.

The tension in the architect's marriage is eased but not resolved in a screaming bed scene, during which Erzsébet, perhaps in Jones's strongest moment, reduces László to tears by expressing how well she understands him. She is sympathetic but not submissive, angered by the way he excludes her from decisions that affect all three of them. As she says later, “László worships only at the altar of himself.”

As a degrading incident between Harry and Zsófia unfolds off-screen, it does not go unnoticed by László, and although the matter is never discussed, it foreshadows a shocking development years later, after work on the project has resumed. That climax occurs in Italy, where Harrison accompanies László to the marble quarries in the Carrera mountains.

In a hauntingly beautiful passage of writing, Orazio (Salvatore Sansone), a pre-war friend and associate, shares his deep feelings about the marble and its significance to his time as a Resistance fighter, about the weight of the geological miracle in both European history and founding America. That such a moving statement precedes László’s brutal degradation only amplifies its devastating impact.

The Van Burens prove to be the epitome of moral corruption engendered by wealth and power; only Harry's twin sister, Maggie (Stacy Martin), seems to appreciate genuine kindness. The Brutalist becomes a scathing critique of the way America's wealthy and privileged class gains prestige through the work and creativity of immigrants, without ever considering them as equals.

Despite Harrison’s grand declarations about the rich having a responsibility to cultivate the great artists of their time, he is a cultural gatekeeper in an exclusionary club. Despising weakness, he ultimately cuts László down to size with a ruthlessness that in retrospect seems preordained by that first meeting.

Brody has rarely been better, bringing a tremendous gravitas but also a pain that gnaws at László's proud sense of self, purpose and destiny. It's a commanding performance; seeing the architect treated like garbage is crushing.

Jones's role seems almost peripheral at first, but the character grows in stature and strength as the perceptive Erzsébet—alone, unwanted, and struggling in a job beneath her—makes a damning assessment of America and their place in it as her husband cracks under the pressure. Alwyn does some of his best work, making Harry despicable without veering into caricature. But the real star of the supporting cast is Pearce in commanding, cool form. Harrison is a visionary as László, but his exerted charm is undermined by an absence of humanity.

The film is dedicated to the memory of composer Scott Walker, who passed away in 2019 and composed the music for Corbet’s previous films. Blumberg’s emotional work honors him with subtle echoes, sometimes even evoking comparisons to the jagged edges of Mica Levi or the solemn grandeur of Terence Blanchard.

Editor David Jancso weaves the sprawling story into a flow that sweeps us along, incorporating archival footage for historical context. And Crawley’s cinematography is magnificent, nowhere more so than when he wanders the mausoleum-like halls of the unfinished project or the Carrera tunnels. Along with production designer Judy Becker and costume designer Kate Forbes, the cinematographer displays a keen eye for detail, evoking the look of mid-century America with a period verisimilitude that seems alive, never frozen in amber.

The Brutalist It is an imposing film from every point of view, which ends with a resonant epilogue that illustrates how art and beauty come from the past, transcending space and time to reveal a freedom of thought and identity often denied to its creators.