“Welcome to America”
Brady Corbet’s (Vox Lux) The Brutalist is a historic behemoth about postwar America, the creative process, the immigrant experience and the insidious poisons lurking deep in the foundations of our modern world. Adrien Brody is László Tóth, a Hungarian-Jewish architect who, after becoming separated from his wife (Felicity Jones) and niece (Raffey Cassidy) during the Holocaust, flees to the promise of the United States. There he crosses paths with wealthy industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) and together they begin work on an ambitious building project.
Winner: Silver Lion for Directing
“Amazing and engrossing... an electrifying piece of work”
“A new great American masterpiece”
“A massive film in every sense... hands Adrien Brody his best role in years”
Brady Corbet has realised an immense portrait of broken Europe’s gradual recovery contrasted with the optimistic naivety of the States, and how great people, things and ideas are threatened by dangerous vices, latent xenophobia and the veiled lingerings of fascism. Led by a pair of career-best performances, Adrien Brody lives his tender, tortured genius László Tóth with tremendous conviction, complemented brilliantly by Guy Pearce as the proud, simple and jealous capitalist. Reviving the lost format of VistaVision, a higher definition, horizontally-threaded celluloid strip that briefly peaked with films like Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and Vertigo, The Brutalist boasts an awe-inspiring visual grandeur made for the cinema. And yes, it even has an intermission.
Viewer advisory: contains scenes of sexual violence