First impressions of The Brutalist
Brady Corbet's extravagant epic, which follows a Holocaust survivor who flees to the U.S only to find himself "tolerated" and exploited by a perversely abusive patron, is ambitious and frustrating.
Imagine Todd Field, director of Tár, holding forth in a bar somewhere, saying “I just loved the idea of giving film critics an epic about a complicated artistic genius whose name would force film critics to use an accent mark every time they wrote her name.”
At the other end of the bar, director Brady Corbet answers, “Hold my bottle of Madeira.”
Corbet’s The Brutalist is the story of — are you ready for this? — László Tóth. Yes, we need three acute accents just to type his name.
And, like Field’s Lydia Tár, a fierce and visionary orchestra conductor, László Tóth, played by Adrien Brody, is a visionary architect. But, like Tár, Tóth’s chances of fulfilling his potential as a great and influential artist will depend largely on whether or not he can manage his vices. Lydia has a predatory manner toward her young prodigies and talented admirers, and an inclination toward tantrums and verbal abuse. For László, it’s drug addiction (which began, he claims, began as a treatment for a broken nose); it’s Tár-like tantrums born of perfectionism; and it’s a problem with marital infidelity.
Did I mention he’s also a Holocaust survivor, still sweating from escape from Buchenwald concentration camp ordeals? In the thrilling opening scene (which recalls the frantic claustrophobia of director László Nemes’ masterpiece Son of Saul), Tóth, a Hungarian Jew, arrives at Ellis Island America, leaving behind his career and his developing fame, beginning all over again with almost nothing in his pockets. He also leaves behind his wife and his orphaned niece, their fate and future uncertain.
László is welcomed in Philadelphia by his brother Attila (Alessandro Nivola), who has assimilated to American life by changing his name to seem less Jewish. But there is an unnerving tension right away as László moves in with Attila and his sensual wife Audrey (Emma Laird), for whom Attila has converted to Catholicism, and who seems both attracted to and disgusted by László .
So, László is in a precarious position; to find his feet and avoid ruination, he must avoid even the slightest hint of impropriety. And that’s not easy for him, hooked on heroin as he is.
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