When it comes to 3 ½ hour epic period piece movies worthy of multiple Oscar nominations, Martin Scorsese (The Irishman, Killers of the Flower Moon) has cornered the market.  Until now.  Director Brady Corbet, who got into the industry as a child actor in the early 2000s, has wowed festival audiences with The Brutalist and it’s currently a serious contender for several Academy Awards including best picture (where it’ll be the 3rd longest nominee in history).

Corbet, working with co-writer Mona Fastvold (director of The World to Come), has split his creation into two distinct chapters with a 15-minute intermission for the film’s cinema release.  It’s a fun, old-school novelty and when I caught this at the Brisbane International Film Festival back in October 2024, there was a hurried rush for the exits at the midway mark as patrons sought bathrooms and the candy bar.  They’d return to a countdown clock informing them of the second half kick-off time.

The Brutalist is set in Philadelphia in the years following the conclusion of World War I.  László Tóth (Brody) is a Hungarian-Jewish architect who, on surviving the Holocaust, fled his home in a Budapest and moved to the United States.  He’s a sharp, well-educated man but as he’s looked down upon as an immigrant foreigner, the only work he can find is designing simple desks and chairs for his cousin’s (Nivola) small furniture store.  The scales seem heavily stacked against László in his pursuit of the “American Dream”.

His big break arrives when engaged to design and build a library for a wealthy businessman, Harrison Lee Van Buren (Pearce).  The project is celebrated (although not at first) and years later, Harrison ambitiously seeks to build a multi-purpose community centre to solidify his nice-guy image and philanthropic legacy.  László is brought in as architect who, with a few more dollars in the bank, now lives with his wife (Jones) and niece (Cassidy).  It sounds like a dream job but László still can’t shake the fact he’s seen as a second-class citizen to those who wield the power and control the purse strings.

The runtime may be a deterrent, but The Brutalist is one of the year’s best movies and worthy of the acclaim it has received since its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last September.  Adrian Brody (The Pianist) is terrific in creating a multi-dimensional lead character who is both heroic and flawed.  There are times when he is unfairly treated and discriminated against but on the flip side, there are times when he’s his own worst enemy because of drug use and an inflexible disposition.  Guy Pearce (Memento) is equally impressive as the entrepreneur who is as charming as he is manipulative.

Filled with great conversations (loved the one between Brody and Pearce at a library launch party), the themes within The Brutalist are as relevant today as they’ve ever been.  So much of the first world has been built on the back of immigrant labour and yet it’s easily forgotten.  The film also has something to say about architecture, the way it is shaped by the time, and the legacy it leaves.  Here in Brisbane, many old Queenslander homes were built 100+ years ago and while their designers are long dead and forgotten, what they left behind still shape the culture and way-of-life in suburbs today.

With cinematography and music that elevate the material even further, The Brutalist is a powerful piece of cinema.