Best of 2024, #3: The Brutalist

First of all, let me just say that this movie had many wonderful aspects, but the best aspect of all was the intermission. Every long movie needs one, and this one was glorious. I stretched my legs, I used the bathroom, I thought about the first half, then I returned to the second half refreshed and ready.

Killers of the Flower Moon had gorgeous cinematography that I would have loved to see in the theater (and a great score I would have loved to hear on good speakers) but there was no way I was going to see it in the theater without an intermission, which it bizarrely lacked. Just add an intermission!

This movie isn’t at the top of my list because it’s a little too similar to The Fountainhead. The politics are much less loathsome, but there’s still an element of worshiping architects that I found problematic. It reminded me of two documentaries from 20 years ago about children struggling with the legacy of their architect fathers. My Architect was good, and was somewhat of a hit as documentaries go, but I thought the subject was too enamored of his asshole Brutalist dad. I preferred a movie that barely got distributed called My Father the Genius, where the director had a more jaundiced view of her dad’s hair-brained architectural visions.

Storyteller’s Rulebook: Not Every Story Needs an Unpredictable Plot

One interesting thing about the movie is that it contains few surprises. By an hour in, you can see that Guy Pierce will be a bad boss and you can guess that the movie will end 2 ½ hours later with the project ending badly, and indeed that happens, very gradually. It is somewhat surprising just how bad things get at the end, and what happens as a result, but I still felt like I was well ahead of the movie. As my manager once said, it all runs downhill.

But this shows how to make such movies work. The movie is all about moments, not plot. With amazing cinematography, score, and especially performances, we just enjoy living in this world, feeling for these people. The greatest asset this movie has is just Adrian Brody’s face, which is enough to sustain this giant runtime. I don’t know why Brody never became a major actor, despite being the youngest Best Actor winner for The Pianist, but all I know is that you put this guy together with surviving the holocaust and you’ve got gold.

Rulebook Casefile: Leave Big Holes

After sprawling for 3 ½ hours, this movie just kind of ends. Mid-crisis, we suddenly jump 20 years ahead, and we find out a little about what happened to some of the characters, but not all. There are huge holes. But I didn’t mind. It gave me something to talk about with my wife as we left the theater. Audiences actually enjoy unexplained gaps, which just make a movie feel real and lived-in.