The Brutalist
Director: Brady Corbet
Starring: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce
Genre: Intelligent Architecture
As you probably know, Brutalism is a form of architecture. Whether it’s good or bad is debatable, but it is distinct. That’s true of the film The Brutalist too, but ironically, that’s not because it’s mostly about the architecture but more about Laszlo Toth, the Hungarian architect portrayed by actor Adrien Brody.
Where this gets tricky and complex is that the story is fictional, but Toth is to a large extent based on two Jewish Hungarian architects of the same period. So, should the film claim to be “based on” or “inspired by” a true story? Does it matter?
It certainly doesn’t seem to matter to the Academy Awards which seems more obsessed with the fact that the film used AI to Hungarianise actor accents. Why CGI seems acceptable but not AI accents seems inconsistent and not relevant to future actor and screenwriter employment opportunities – a focus of last year’s Hollywood strikes.
Anyway, irrespective of the AI “controversy”, Brody was excellent, is likely to win an Academy Award, and the film was very good. Though from my scientific, nerdy perspective a greater analysis of Brutalism architecture would have added value to the film.
It also has a unique style which is fascinating but also distracting from the storylines, some of which are more interesting and relevant than others. Indeed, the three-and-half hour film with a 15-minute intermission (the first in years) could have been edited and tightened up, but that probably would have removed the intermission marketing focus – and maybe earnt it the Best Picture award (assuming it didn’t win!).
Rating: Four storeys
Ed: Adrien Brody won the Oscar for Best Actor. The film also won Best Original Score and Best Cinematography Oscars.
