How Do I Get You to Watch 'The Brutalist'?
For many months, I did not think I would see The Brutalist. I try to watch movies as cold as possible, without knowing anything about them, so all I knew about the film was that 1) it was 3.5 hours long, 2) it was about architecture, 3) Adrien Brody was in it, and, based on the trailers I could not avoid, 4) it was from A24 and “artsy.” The first two factors are deterrents for me (I think I’m the only critic who didn’t like Columbus); the latter two, I am indifferent toward.
Anyway, I finally went to go see it with a group of friends a few weeks ago, and I fell head over heels. It’s not just my favorite film of 2024. It was the most exciting kind of feature there is for me—the kind that makes me excited about the cinematic medium and its possibilities. The Brutalist is a movie; therefore, there is something special about movies. Its closest analogue, IMO, is Killers of the Flower Moon: another historical American epic about capitalism and violence toward marginalized communities that never lets you feel its long run time because there’s so much action packed in that you almost wish it was longer. (Also, neither film has a fully convincing central romance, but I digress.) I can’t help but feel that the marketing for The Brutalist totally failed—arguably, starting with its title, which is the opposite of inviting (if also, yes, extremely fitting for the movie’s themes and plot).
So this is how I’ve been selling the movie to my friends. It’s a story about a World War II refugee from Hungary who moves to the U.S. and gradually allows himself to believe he can resume his architecture career in Philadelphia. He sees in his charming, unnerving cousin (a very good Alessandro Nivola), with whom he stays in the weeks after his arrival, the rewards of assimilation and reinvention. He transforms the library of a local mogul (Guy Pearce), who eventually becomes his pathway toward a very narrow kind of success. The more Brody’s character gives of himself to the project for the rich man, the more he loses. The more he believes he can find a version of himself in America, the more he’s caught in the most American of vises.
Is it depressing? I don’t know how to answer that question, actually. It’s not a happy tale, but it feels so truthful that it never feels sad for sadness’s sake. But I think the polarities to gauge it by is not happy-sad, but exciting-boring and big-small. It’s an epic! It’s big and exciting! For much of it, you are completely unsure where the story will go, which themes the script will focus on, what will happen to the protagonist. I was rapt, and, eventually, enraptured. Watch it in the theater if you can; it’ll be worth it.
-Inkoo
—“The White Lotus Overstays Its Welcome.” I reviewed the third season of the HBO series, whose positive reviews genuinely flummox me.
—“The Old-School Heroics of The Pitt.” I’m not a medical-drama person at all, but I’ve really been enjoying this E.R. knockoff on Max.
—“Mo’s Urgent, Uneven Homecoming.” Although I didn’t love the second season of this Netflix dramedy as much as the first one, I’m still sad that the very thoughtful, funny Mo—I think the first and only series about a Palestinian American family—is concluding its two-season run with so little fanfare. It’s truly a hidden gem.
—“Growing Up Murdoch.” I had a strange but persistent thought while reading this James Murdoch profile, which retells the decades-long saga of the Murdoch succession Sturm und Drang through his point of view: The Murdochs are America’s royalty. They aren’t directly in power, but they wield a great deal of influence. They’re mind-bogglingly rich, and they know how to direct attention. We know so much more about them than we should, and, as we learn from this profile, they constantly plant stories about each other in the press to jockey for position. And, of course America’s royalty would be members of the business class. (Sorry, Kennedys; your luster has been fully tarnished with the ascent of RFK, Jr.) I think McKay Coppins enters the ranks of the great magazine writers with this piece, which is so salacious and humane and insightful, starting with the jaw-dropping opening anecdote. And, if you need more Murdoch drama after that, there’s this exhaustively reported (and much drier) article from NY Times, co-written by longtime Murdoch chronicler Jim Rutenberg.
—“Wokeness Is Not to Blame for Trump.” If you’re only going to read one political piece this week/month/year, make it this one from Rebecca Traister, who brings both data and reasoning to this cri de coeur for compassion.
—“How Regime Change Happens in America.” This Fresh Air interview with scholar Anne Applebaum helped me get a broader understanding of what’s happening in D.C. right now, through a comparative international lens that I found exceedingly helpful.
— “‘They’re Scared Shitless’: The Threat of Political Violence Informing Trump’s Grip on Congress.” There’s been a lot of talk about why Congress isn’t doing anything to impede Trump and how the legislative branch is torching the checks and balances built into our government structure in the process. It’s long been my pet theory that members of Congress, especially on the right, have been loathe to reveal the true extent of how scary the American public has become toward politicians, partly because they don’t want to admit it’s probably mostly coming from one direction, partly because they don’t want to pass any gun-control legislation. This is what they’ve wrought.