The Brutalist (2024)

The Brutalist runs 216 minutes, and the second half is a heavy, slow climb that not everyone will finish. That’s the honest warning. Adrien Brody plays László Tóth, a Jewish architect from Hungary who survived the Holocaust and reaches Philadelphia in 1947 with empty pockets, his wife Erzsébet and niece Zsófia still trapped on the other side of the ocean. A wealthy industrialist, Harrison Lee Van Buren, hires him to build an enormous community center, and the film becomes a story about who gets to own an artist’s work, and his dignity. Brody is quietly devastating. Guy Pearce is magnetic as a patron whose generosity always comes with a price. Shot in VistaVision, it looks massive, and every concrete wall feels like a cathedral. Felicity Jones seems slightly miscast, and the despair in the back half doesn’t let up. It made $50.5 million worldwide on a reported $9.6M. An 8.6 because it’s a grand, serious film about building a life after unbearable loss. $18.59 says you look a little longer at the next big concrete building you walk past.

What works: Brody gives a pained, lived-in performance, Guy Pearce is riveting opposite him, and the photography gives the concrete real grandeur.

What doesn’t: The second half grows slow and relentlessly bleak, and Felicity Jones never quite settles into the role of Erzsébet.

Who it’s for: Patient viewers who love big, serious American epics and can clear an entire evening for one.