My Review of "The Brutalist"

The Brutalist is an epic drama that came out in 2024. A lot of people have been praising this movie, so I wanted to see what all the hype was about. I have mixed feelings about this movie. One one hand, I can see why people hold this movie in such high regard. On the other hand, there are a lot of excessive things in this movie that I felt didn't need to be in there. Well that's just me, I know why they left it in there and so this isn't a movie for everyone.

The movie starts out with a man named Laszlo. He's a Hungarian refugee and it's the late 1940s. World war two has ended and he was able to immigrate to the United States. All is not well though. His wife and his niece are still enduring grueling times in Europe. Luckily for Laszlo, he's very well educated. His expertise is in architecture. Back home, he was a bit of a celebrity in his field.

He is willing to work hard but he has gained a few vices along the way. Due to certain circumstances he gets mixed up with a few things. Still, he's able to overcome. I found that he had a bit of a horseshoe up his butt all the time because he always ended up on his feet no matter what. Even the vices he gets into seem fairly trivial throughout the movie. They make it seem like he's addicted to certain things but he's able to kick habits like they're nothing.

Eventually, Laszlo gets meets up with some wealthy man named Harrison. He has a vision for Laszlo's skills. When he decides to hire Laszlo for this huge undertaking, Laszlo embarks on a grandiose project. There would be many problems along the way. That's why the runtime is over three and a half hours long.

Each character in this movie have easily identifiable motivations. I felt that Laszlo's wife Erzsebet was a little too perfect throughout the movie. Most of the characters in the movie are flawed in their own way. The tone of each of the characters are a little uneven. Sometimes they feel like one dimensional characters and then then there's meaning behind what they're doing. Their character arcs felt a little off. I'm not sure if it's the jump in time throughout the movie or what.

This is a slow burn but it is still captivating. They add a lot of interesting situations throughout the movie to keep your interest going. It's an exploration in the experiences of an immigrant in the United States. There are talks about power struggles between classes, identity, community and the list goes on. It is so long that they actually have an intermission in the middle of the movie. Be warned.

Visually, this movie is stunning. They put meticulous detail into everything. Absolutely every detail is deliberate and purposely draws your eyes to things on the screen. I was mesmerized by the camera work and details into what they did in this movie. They went so far as to even change the grading and screen aspect ratio to mimic the times that the movie was representing. It is truly awe inspiring.

The sound is surprisingly good too. For a movie that doesn't have a lot of bombastic sound effects it really immersed me into the movie. I felt like I was a fly on the wall in certain scenes. It was really well done.

I will sound like a prude here, but I thought the gratuitous sex and drugs in this movie were overdone. I didn't think a lot of it was necessary to help this movie out. I understand what they're going with it and I appreciate it but I didn't think it was necessary. This movie does a lot of things to help make the audience feel uncomfortable. I guess this could be a decision to make the audience feel just as uncomfortable as the characters do but I could have done without these scenes. There are a ton of these scenes by the way.

Overall, I felt that this movie is gorgeous and a real immersive experience. It is fun in some ways but it's also quite uncomfortable. I know it's meant to be uncomfortable but I'm not uncomfortable when I should be. These are scenes that are added that don't have anything to do with the main story. So there is a disjointed discomfort here. I appreciate this movie and had some fun so I still have to give it a good score. I have to give this one a 6.5 out of 10. I probably will not recommend this to anyone or watch it again.