Brady Corbet's visual and thematic fascinations have never been sharper than in The Brutalist

The second sentence shrieked in My Chemical Romance's 2010 song "Na Na Na (Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na Na)" is "the aftermath is secondary." That may be true for the Black Parade boys, but for writer/director Brady Corbet, the aftermath is everything. Over three movies, Corbet has shown a fascination for exploring how people respond to era-specific horrors. Though it took place after Germany's surrender, World War I's shadow hung over his French-set directorial debut The Childhood of a Dictator. Vox Lux, meanwhile, chronicles a pop singer whose career started after she was one of the few survivors of a school shooting. The horrific past is kept off-screen in Corbet’s movies. Their immense psychological effects on ordinary souls, though, are always center stage.

The Brutalist, Corbet’s grandest effort yet in scope, begins in 1947 as Hungarian-Jewish architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) arrives in New York's harbor after enduring the Holocaust. As he celebrates with other people on his boat, Corbet's camera captures the Statue of Liberty beckoning in new souls to this country. Interestingly, Corbet frames this landmark at a distorted, upside-down angle. It's a visual immediately echoing how Corbet framed the titular ruler of The Childhood of a Dictator in one of the feature's final images. In both cases, this filmmaker is capturing figures meant to represent a country’s towering strength in an off-kilter fashion suggesting something is askew. In The Brutalist, this shot is a harbinger of what’s to come for Tóth. He’s cheering now, but darkness lurks behind that torch-wielding woman.

Tóth soon finds himself in Pennsylvania working for his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola). It is here that Corbet and Mona Fastvold’s screenplay introduces a key concept in The Brutalist: assimilation. This expansive motion picture undercuts America as “the land of opportunity” by showing how opportunity only comes to those who conform. In one of her first conversations with Tóth, Attila’s wife inquires if he wants to see a doctor about getting his nose overhauled. Conceptually she’s referring to injuries he received after leaping from a train. However, the creepy undercurrent of a Gentile woman asking a Jewish man about how he can improve his nose is unmistakable. Meanwhile, Attila openly notes to Tóth that, though he was raised Jewish, he’s now Catholic, like his wife. He’s also made sure the name of his furniture store is “Miller & Sons Co.”

“They like a good family name,” Attila happily explains. It’s a lie, of course. Miller isn’t Attila’s last name and he doesn’t have any sons. It’s not the last lie Tóth will encounter in this new world.

The exploration of Tóth trying to find a place in his new home eventually involves the incredibly wealthy Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a Protestant man prone to bouts of terrifying emotional outbursts. He's also won over by what Tóth did to his library, overhauling it in a distinctive Brutalist architecture style. Astonished by Tóth’s creativity, Van Buren hires him to create a new community center named after his later mother. Desperate for money, Tóth agrees, especially since working with Van Buren and his powerful friends could help him finally get his wife, Erzsébet Tóth (Felicity Jones), to America. What will László Tóth sacrifice and endure, though, in trying to secure “stability” in this land that despises “outsiders”?

The tug-of-war between Tóth trying to secure security in America and not lose himself manifests in many compelling ways throughout The Brutalist. One of the most striking, though, comes from Daniel Blumberg's score. Typically, his compositions sound like a traditional historical movie score that keeps getting intruded on by atonal sounds, like the low gutturals of clanging piano keys or what sound like clicking noises. It's like these sonically warring orchestral tracks reflect the endless ways Tóth is internally conflicted. How does he exact his creative vision without upsetting Van Buren? Is there a way to "fit in" to a society so hostile to foreigners?

This striking auditory reflection of Tóth’s internal life is vividly executed under Blumberg's direction. It's just one of many ways The Brutalist thrives as a creative exercise under the direction of Brady Corbet. This man's always exuded confidence in his filmmaking. That’s even apparent in his unique approach to opening credits, which manifests again in The Brutalist. Here, various cast and crew member names scroll from right to left horizontally rather than the typical vertical maneuver. It’s an immediately bold subversion of expectations showing that Corbet doesn’t lean on what cinema has done. He’s focused on what it can do, the stories it has yet to tell. He certainly accomplishes that and then some with The Brutalist, which sees him in peak creative form.

The Brutalist’s 215-minute runtime (which includes a 15-minute intermission) will undoubtedly inspire further think pieces (as if we don’t have enough already) about modern movies being “too long”. I, for one, adore an excellent lengthy feature... and not just because it gives me three-plus hours of distractions away from my personal anxieties! There’s something enthralling about being under a talented artist’s spell for so long. Moods of all kinds can really seep in over these extensive runtimes and The Brutalist exemplifies that exceptionally. Corbet and Fastvold are crafting a saga here that (exempting the epilogue) chronicles 13 years of a man’s life. While many 110-minute music biopics barrel through so much material in cramped confines. Corbet lets the past simmer in an unrushed fashion.

This lengthy narrative approach also informs some truly astonishing single-take shots. Corbet and cinematographer Lol Crawley implement images so effectively into specific character conversations or plot developments. So absorbing is the human drama within these visual means that it’s easy to forget about the camera's unblinking nature! My personal favorite instance of this visual motif is a shot of László Tóth and three of his loved ones engaging in a tense meal-time conversation. It’s an image echoing a single-take dance sequence from the Kathleen Collins movie Losing Ground. In both cases, an unwavering camera chronicles domestic strife between supposedly close people. Corbet and Collins both use incredibly distinctive camerawork to hauntingly capture human connections crumbling in real time.

Harkening back to a masterpiece like Losing Ground alone should exemplify the level of quality filmmaking on display here. Meanwhile, it’s remarkable to witness Corbet and Crawler applying a David Lean scope of storytelling to a deeply intimate story. The Brutalist is not a movie populated by a cast of thousands or a grand spectacle. On the contrary, Corbet’s framing of key setbacks for Tóth’s architectural ambitions specifically deprives audiences of seeing high-stakes calamities other filmmakers would linger on in slow-motion. Instead, this story follows the life of a man who was largely relegated to the shadows. Tóth only rarely hob-knobs with the upper-crust Van Buren socializes with daily. Only on a trip to Italy does Tóth’s job allow him to see grand sights. Otherwise, he’s too busy living paycheck-to-paycheck.

The runtime and imagery (namely a reliance on wide shots) echo classic Hollywood roadshow epics. Yet The Brutalist is a firmly intimate dramatic exercise. It wrings its most absorbing scenes out of deeply grounded situations. László and Erzsébet Tóth's first nighttime conversation after they're reunited is a phenomenal example of this. Told largely in an unbroken shot, Corbet and Crowley focus solely on these two souls lying in bed close to each other. A flurry of conflicting emotions escapes Erzsébet’s lips with every word she says.

I truly never knew where her monologue was going next, a testament to the writing and transfixing acting from Jones. Capturing this incredibly raw, personal, sexually-tinged exchange through the cinematographic process VistaVision has such fascinating ramifications. Many American features in the 1950s and 60s utilized VistaVision. However, most were grand Westerns (The Searchers), spy thrillers (North by Northwest), or musicals (High Society). Now, this crisp widescreen shooting style is utilized in The Brutalist to capture complicated human emotions and messy immigrant experiences. A grand canvas applied to intimate struggles.

This doesn’t just provide a mesmerizing co-opting of classic Hollywood cinematographic techniques. It also ensures The Brutalist looks outstanding on the big screen. Given that László Tóth is obsessed with making sure his projects use the right materials, it’s only appropriate The Brutalist comes to life on a 35mm film that lends richly tactile qualities to every surface. Inhabiting this transfixing imagery and themes are an array of terrific performances. They hail from a trio of lead actors dreadfully underserved by modern Hollywood. The dearth of big adult American dramas in the last nine to twelve years has left The Brutalist’s principal cast members struggling to remind everyone of their talents.

The incredibly talented guy Pearce, for instance, has been trapped in dreadful American films like Disturbing the Peace, Bloodshot, and Without Remorse. Brody's career woes go back even further than the mid-2010s. Even Jones, who anchored a 2016 Star Wars movie, didn’t get a bevy of juicy roles after Rogue One. These career problems weren’t a reflection of their deficiencies. It’s just that movies like The Brutalist have been rare in the modern American film scene. This old-school epic lets all three performers excel in their respective parts. Someone finally allowed these actors to cook and the results are scrumptious. Pearce thrives portraying a man at once financially alluring yet always quietly agitating. The creepy qualities of Van Burn fascinatingly poke through in Pearce’s assured hands.

Brody, for his part, effortlessly sheds his prior roles (from his amazing Wes Anderson turns to whatever the hell was going on with "Flirty Harry") to create a singular performance as László Tóth. From the moment he steps onto the screen, there’s a weariness radiating from every inch of Brody’s physicality. We don’t need flashbacks or voice-over narration to solidify the torment Tóth’s endured. Just the way Brody composes himself speaks volumes. It’s a magnificent turn, a perfectly densely detailed anchor for an equally layered historical drama.

“If you figure a way to live without serving a master, any master, then let the rest of us know, will you?” cult leader Lancaster Dodd asks of Freddie Quell in one of The Master’s last scenes. “For you'd be the first in the history of the world." I thought of those words a lot as The Brutalist unfolded. Here is a saga of a man who came to America to escape the oppressiveness of Nazi-ravaged Germany. Throughout Brady Corbet’s third directorial effort, we see that Tóth merely swapped societal cages. He’s still othered in America as a Jewish immigrant. His only solace is in cruelly exerting authority onto others weaker than him, such as construction workers or other members of the working class. That is "success" in America. There is no true refuge from a society built on oppression and capitalism.

“This place is rotten,” one character eventually declares of America. The same cannot be said for Corbet’s filmmaking, though. This searing, towering work joins Godland, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Babylon in the pantheon of excellent 2020s epics. His most accomplished, confident creation yet, The Brutalist makes viewers just as enamored as Corbet in exploring “the aftermath” of grueling historical events.