There is no denying a couple things about Writer/Director Brady Corbet's new epic THE BRUTALIST. 1. He's seen and been inspired by Paul Thomas Anderson's brilliant 2007 film, "There Will Be Blood" along with Leone's "Once Upon A Time in America". 2. He's created a beautiful, large scale production that looks like it cost north of $100 million. It's jaw dropping when you realize that the total budget of the film was actually $10 million.
Think about that. The average Avengers film costs $350 million. "Red One" cost over $300 million. If there's an option to give me 35 "Brutalists" or one "Red One", please calculate my vote for the former.
Like Anderson's "Blood" and its protagonist Daniel Plainview, Brady's main character Laszlo Toth is a complicated, dark and brilliant man. It's also a massive film in length, stretching to 3 hours and 34 minutes including its Overture and 15 minute intermission.
There is something hugely pleasurable about a film on a big screen, opening with an overture as Daniel Blumberg's minimalist, moody score washes over you, preparing you for the film ahead. The first film shot with VistaVision cameras in five decades, the richness and clarity of the color palette pops throughout.
The film opens with Laszlo walking through the bowels of a crowded, dank ship. After a minutes long tracking shot, Laszlo emerges on its deck, overjoyed to see the Statue of Liberty welcoming him to America, circa 1947.
In what serves as a stunning visual reference to the film ahead, Lady Liberty is only seen from an upside down viewpoint. The immigrant path isn't straightforward, even from the film's first perspective.
Laszlo is played by Adrien Brody (The Pianist, King Kong, Midnight in Paris) in a performance so intense, so FULL that he covers every spectrum of emotion. No one does palpable joy or intense depression more effectively than Brody and he carries the massive film on his back, on screen for nearly every one of its 214 minutes.
Laszlo's wife Erszebet has been separated from him and they communicate via letters that we see via narration. It's clear the road to their reunion will be long and complicated.
Laszlo takes a bus to Philadephia, reconnecting with his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola), who owns a tiny furniture store in the city along with his American wife. We begin to see Toth's creativity when he designs furniture for the shop, standing out in the front windows with a style more suited to the MOMA than a neighborhood furniture store. This leads to a job in the country when Harry Lee, the son of a wealthy industrialist contracts Attila and Laszlo to remodel his father's library.
As Harry (Joe Alwyn from "The Favourite") leads them to a massive country Estate, Laszlo's work in America begins. Harry's father, Harrison Lee Van Buren, Sr. begins a complicated relationship with Laszlo that will drive the entire film. Guy Pearce (Memento, Prometheus) gives a career best, Oscar Nominated performance as Van Buren, railing at the walls but inspired by something about talented artists that fills an empty place that all his riches can't stuff.
To watch a film about a driven, tortured man is one thing. Brady has constructed his story around two such men, neither of which has a desire to give an inch when it comes to their vision. What happens when those visions collide?
The first half of the film is by far it's best, setting up each character in all their flaws and glory. Brady notches his story pieces in one by one and I'll give nothing else up about the plot after Van Buren and Toth meet. Brady's assembly of the story is as deliberate as any construct of Toth's.
After a 15 minute intermission at the exact halfway point of the film (down to the second!) the second half brings the immediate arrival of Toth's wife Erszebet, played by the reliably entertaining and challenging Felicity Jones (Rogue One, Inferno). She is accompanied by her niece Szofia (Raffey Cassidy) who never speaks, but always observes.
The film slows, in direct opposition to the additional story lines and asides that Corbet continues to pile on in the second half. It's not without its powerful moments. A visit by Toth and Van Buren to a stone quarry is perfectly structured and shot, its one of the best sequences in the film.
But the nighttime scene that follows feels so unnecessary, so over the top that it feels like Brady was worried we weren't following just how tortured and toxic these two men's relationship was.
The more that Toth spirals downward, the more the film grinds into repetitiveness and indulgence.
After a shocking and inconclusive "ending", the film then tacks on an epilogue that takes place in 1980. It doesn't serve to reveal anything of consequence about Laszlo, now a silent, almost unrecognizable figure in a wheelchair. Some have hailed the epilogue as transitory and brilliant. To me, it could have been left on the editing floor without consequence.
Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" is a favorite film of mine, sitting at number four in my Top Ten Films of All Time. I revisit it often, finding new depth and new vision every time I see it.
While I appreciated the size and scale of Corbet's aspirations, Toth never connected with me in the same way that Plainview did. Both are unpleasant, selfish and dark creatures. But I'd rather drink a milkshake with Plainview than suffer a heroin hangover with Toth.
THE BRUTALIST is without doubt, a modern epic and a showcase for Corbet's vision, the virtuoso acting talent of Brody and Pearce and the photography of Lol Crawley, but the unwieldy second half drags the film down to a respectful, but very solid B.
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