The Brutalist
Overview
The Brutalist is a 2024 epic historical drama film directed by Brady Corbet, starring Adrien Brody as László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect who survives the Holocaust and emigrates to the United States. The film is set in 1947, in the aftermath of World War II. László arrives in America with nothing, having lost his wife and his life's work. He is taken in by his cousin, Attila (Alessandro Nivola), who runs a furniture store. He is hired by a wealthy industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), to design a brutalist community center in memory of his mother. The film is a three-and-a-half-hour epic, shot in VistaVision, a widescreen format. It is a meditation on trauma, displacement, and the struggle to create art in a hostile world. László is a genius, but he is also a difficult, obsessive, and damaged man. He is exploited by Van Buren, who takes credit for his work. The film ends with László being deported, and his legacy being forgotten. The Brutalist won the Silver Lion for Best Director at the Venice Film Festival. Adrien Brody won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor. The film was praised for its ambition, its visuals, and its performances.
