The Brutalist: Long Trip In Hell!

This film has garnered numerous A.A. nominations: Best Picture, Best Actor in a Leading Role, Best Director, Best Actor and Actress in Supporting Roles, Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Production Design.  The movie took many years to make and even has an IMAX version – yet, the budget was only $10,000,000!  The film is 3 hours and 30 minutes, not including the 15-minute intermission.  Due to the absurd length of the film, I waited until I could buy it on Amazon ($20).  I watched it over 3 consecutive nights, as if it was a short mini-series.  This is why this review came much later than its theater release.  The film has much going for it, but it won’t be in my Top 10, not only because it was way too long (I easily could have cut 1 hour of footage.), but also because I think the film’s last hour took a dramatic turn for the worse and unfortunately lost its way.  Supposedly, the film is not based on any individual, but rather an amalgam of the many lives of people who were in this extremely difficult, complex, and stressful situation.

Lazlo Toth (Adrien Brody), a Hungarian-born Jew is a prominent extremely-gifted European architect.  He was trained by the German Bauhaus School of Design, which emphasized simplicity, functionality, and design.  He escaped Europe after WWII ended and emigrated to the U.S. to try to resurrect his life.  His wife, Erzsebel (Felicity Jones), and neice, Zsofia (Raffery Cassidy), are still stranded in Europe (also victims of the war), but Lazlo is trying to get them into the U.S.

I suspect that it is likely, even before the horror for Jews after Hitler came to power, that Lazlo had a narcissistic personality disorder.  He is arrogant, controlling, dismissive, and emotionally-distant, among other problems.  The horrors of the war then significantly aggravated his psychiatric problems.  He is anxious, depressed, and tries to numb his emotional torment via frequent uses of heroin.

Lazlo meets a wealthy entrepreneur, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), who commissions Lazlo to build a community center in Doylestown, PA (a suburb of Philadelphia).  Named “The Institute,” the center will have a library, gymnasium, auditorium, and Christian Chapel (a Christian organization funded much of the project).  While involved in this project, his wife and niece reunite with him; however, regretfully, Lazlo and Erzsebel have serious marital problems.

The project encountered unexpected obstacles which causes a conflict between Van Buren and Lazlo.  I won’t say any more about the plot, but I didn’t find what happened between them consistent with Van Buren’s character or necessary to convey the essential message of the film.  Lazlo is a tortured soul, but to convey his inner desolation, the viewer is also tortured for 3 & 1/2 hours.

Nevertheless, a movie with so many A.A. nominations is still a Must-See.  Brody, Jones, and Pearce all deserve their A.A. nominations.  The screenplay, co-written by Director Brady Corbet and his wife Mona Fastvold, is very well-written, although it’s too much of a good thing.