The Brutalist: A monumental effort

The Brutalist (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, rape, profanity and drug use

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.2.25

This film is impressive in many respects. 

 

Director/co-writer Brady Corbet ambitiously tackles an overwhelming, quite possibly unattainable endeavor much the way this story’s protagonist does.

 

Immigrant architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody) has an uphill battle, persuading old-money
movers and shakers that his cutting-edge structure will be an asset to their community.

Alas, Corbet’s reach ultimately exceeds his grasp.

From the very first frame, this film Calls Attention To Itself. Lol Crawley’s cinematographic choice is 70mm VistaVision, a throwback logo and widescreen variant long discarded since its 1950s debut. Sebastian Pardo’s title credits design mimics the shape and style of the Brutalism architectural movement that erupted in Europe and — as in this story — Pennsylvania during that same decade.

 

Further mimicking this Old Hollywood approach, Corbet’s film opens with an overture, then proceeds with a first act — “The Enigma of Arrival” — a 15-minute intermission (with a clock that counts down against a key photograph), followed by a second act — “The Hard Core of Beauty” — and an epilogue.

 

Daniel Blumberg’s wildly eclectic score often clashes — deliberately — with the cacophonous “slabs of noise” from Andy Neil’s sound design. The result is jarring, startling and disorienting, reflecting the central character’s professional, mental and emotional journey.

 

It often feels like this saga is based on actual events, and actual people, but no; aside from acknowledging the post-WWII Brutalism movement itself, Corbet and co-writer Mona Fastvoid’s entirely fictitious story and characters are merely suggested by Brutalist architects Le Corbusier, Paul Rudolph and Ralph Rapson, with a narrative arc that owes much to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, and a soupçon of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane.

 

László Tóth (Adrien Brody) is introduced in a confusing blur of motion: a Hungarian Holocaust survivor newly arrived in the United States, on a ship laden with fellow immigrants. Tellingly, his first view of the Statue of Liberty is upside-down, and then sideways, as he emerges from the ship’s bowels: a warning that America’s promise of opportunity is skewed.

 

That, coupled with the preceding Goethe quote — “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe themselves free” — promises that László’s subsequent journey will not end happily.

Tomorrowland: An unsatisfying ride

Tomorrowland (2015) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG, and a bit generously, for violence, dramatic intensity and sci-fi action
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 5.22.15

Nobody likes a lecture.

Disney’s Tomorrowland displays enough gee-whiz creativity and high-tech gloss for the next half-dozen films — and that’s a problem all by itself — but all the razzle-dazzle eventually boils down to A Message. A heartfelt and deeply necessary message, to be sure, but a disappointing anticlimax nonetheless.

Having penetrated the inner sanctum carefully guarded by the reclusive Frank Walker
(George Clooney), Casey (Britt Robertson) can't help wondering why he spends so much
time watching so many monitors.

I was reminded of Christopher Nolan’s Inception, with its mind-blowing dreams within dreams, all eventually leading to the inconsequential equivalent of Orson Welles’ Rosebud.

But whereas Citizen Kane built to that moment with well-established irony, Inception and Tomorrowland merely leave us with a vague sense of having been cheated. As in, Seriously? That’s what we’ve been building to?

With respect to the environmental undercurrent running throughout this new Disney release, 1971’s Silent Running made the same point far more profoundly — and effectively — without being so insufferably didactic.

But while the concluding let-down is indeed unsatisfying, Tomorrowland has a more glaring problem: a ludicrously overcooked script by too many chefs. Scripters Damon Lindelof, Jeff Jensen and Brad Bird (the latter also directing) can’t decide what type of movie they’re making — action epic, sci-fi comedy or cautionary tale — and subsequently fail at all three.

To be sure, the result is awesome to look at, with marvels a-plenty on the screen. But it’s almost as if Bird hopes to overwhelm us with the eye-popping imagery, as a means of concealing the story’s deficiencies and glaring plot holes. This is one of those scripts that doesn’t hold together during post-mortem scrutiny; you’ll exit the theater exchanging comments that begin with “Wait a minute...” and “But what about...” and, mostly, “Why did that happen?”

Why, indeed. Rarely has a surprise villain’s motive seemed so impenetrable, muddled and pointless.

All of which represents a heartbreaking result from the talented Bird, who until now could do no wrong. Few directors could boast of a consecutive record as strong as The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. But not even he could stitch all these disparate fabric squares into a pleasing quilt.

Such a shame.