Vague Visages’ The Brutalist review contains minor spoilers. Brady Corbet’s 2024 movie features Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

Few films wear their symbolism as heavy-handedly as The Brutalist, which immediately announces that it’s about the corruption of the idealized American Dream through an opening, upside-down shot of the Statue of Liberty, seen from the protagonist’s perspective. Jewish-Hungarian architect László Toth (Adrien Brody) has managed to flee war-torn Europe to start a new life in the United States, and the aforementioned visual suggests that viewers don’t need an extra 210 minutes to make sense of the character’s trajectory. It’s the kind of entry-level symbolism destined for a future of high school essay questions (think of the green light that The Great Gatsby’s Jay sees in the distance, or the red dress of Curley’s wife in Of Mice and Men).

Writer/director Brady Corbet’s third film has been compared by many to The Godfather (1972) and There Will Be Blood (2007) — two films that tackle the capitalist pursuit of power in the first half of the “American Century,” but with a comparative lightness of touch, with the former leaning into its genre trappings and the latter being a dark comedy. Following Corbet’s divisive sophomore effort Vox Lux (2018), which — despite its 21^st century setting and music industry milieu — served as a test run for The Brutalist’s overblown American Dream commentary, as the filmmaker reverse-engineered a didactic character study about the country taking advantage of its poorest citizens, their achievements far outweighed by their suffering. That Corbet’s 2024 feature is by far his best film to date is in large part thanks to the first half, as each section is exactly 100 minutes long, separated by a 15 minute intermission. The director resists the obvious symbolism in favor of an earnest family drama, the results as rich as the glowing chorus of festival reviews have attested. In the second section, however, Corbet’s tendency to clumsily integrate a state-of-the-nation address will presumably frustrate people familiar with his work.

The Brutalist Review: Related — Know the Cast: ‘Anora’

That opening chapter is at its best during its introductory stretch, as it navigates the ways in which immigrants were expected to modify their appearances to make a name for themselves in a land which preached about its inclusivity internationally. László gets a job working with his cousin Atilla (Alessandro Nivola), a Philadelphia furniture store owner who has changed his name (that’s what the marketplace expects of him). It’s through Atilla that Brody’s protagonist begins to get hired on small-scale architectural projects, eventually making the acquaintance of Harry Lee Van Buren (a slimy Joe Alwyn), who wants to renovate the library in his family home while his father Harrison (an even slimier Guy Pearce) is away on business. Harrison — hammily played by Pearce as a caricature of old money prejudice and pomposity you wouldn’t expect to find within a film so austere — doesn’t take kindly to these modifications but decides to hire László to construct a community center (dedicated to the protagonist’s late mother) upon discovering the architect’s acclaimed work back in Hungary. It’s a project that Brody’s character can’t coherently define — part library, part gymnasium, part swimming pool — and continues to be an obsession long after László’s presumed dead wife, Erzsébet (a miscast Felicity Jones), reunites with her husband on American shores.

The Brutalist Review: Related — Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘The Last Letter from Your Lover’

László struggles to reconcile his professional and personal lives, and Corbet — working with partner and co-writer Mona Fastvold — doesn’t make the intimate moments register as anything other than allegorical. His recreation of mid-century America in contemporary Hungary is captured handsomely with VistaVision, encouraging the viewer to look deeper into his protagonist’s creations and interpret deeper meanings within (a proposition made literal in its winking, scathingly satirical epilogue), and every dialogue exchange is written with overbearing allegorical intent. This unsubtle writing is reflected in the sudden transformations of László’s professional relationships, most notably in how Harrison’s micro-aggressions and frequent undermining of his employee take a turn that would be cartoonishly villainous were it not genuinely harrowing. The Brutalist may appear like an inaccessible art picture from the outside, but it moves with an energy that ensures the casual viewer will never be daunted by its epic stature. Unfortunately, this concession to audience tastes works to the detriment of Corbet’s characters, each becoming less richly defined and bearing closer resemblances to broad archetypes as the story progresses.

The Brutalist Review: Related — Know the Cast: ‘Heretic’

The Brutalist isn’t entirely about the American Dream — there’s a subplot in the second half dissecting the very concept of a homeland as László’s niece aims to persuade her uncle to join her in emigrating to Israel. There is a richer examination of this feeling of statelessness within the margins of Corbet’s 2024 film, not to mention a timely one when considering the protagonist’s protestation that the newly founded state should not be regarded as his homeland. However, anything that feels personal is eventually supplanted by something purely symbolic. After being won over by a sweeping family drama, I spent the back half of The Brutalist frustrated by Corbet’s reluctance to meet his characters on their level, as they are richly drawn figures who become nothing more than pawns for an overarching allegory. The director clearly wants his every film to be a grand statement, but the most revelatory thing about The Brutalist is that Corbet is a far more perceptive dramatist when he’s not trying to squeeze everybody onscreen into an overstuffed yet underdeveloped thesis.

Alistair Ryder (@YesitsAlistair) is a film and TV critic based in Manchester, England. By day, he interviews the great and the good of the film world for Zavvi, and by night, he criticizes their work as a regular reviewer at outlets including The Film Stage and Looper. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film reviews at Vague Visages.

The Brutalist Review: Related — Soundtracks of Cinema: ‘The Apprentice’