For some, home is where you park your car, hang your hat, eat your dinner. For others, it’s more ephemeral: It’s not where you live, but where you feel alive. Not where your furniture sits, but where keeps your soul. For others, it might simply be … a longing. A hope. A promise.
For much of their history, the Jewish people have longed for home. They began as nomads, leading their herds across barely claimed lands. They spent centuries in Egypt, serving foreign kings who worshiped foreign gods.
And even when they found their Promised Land, it was not to last. The world’s greatest empires took their turns gobbling it up: the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Romans. God’s chosen people were forced to wander again—across countries, continents, oceans. Looking for a place to call home.
It’s 1947, and László Tóth wonders if he’s found it.
He’d once been a famous architect—one specializing in the avant-garde Brutalist style—designing brave new buildings in his home country of Hungary. But World War II soon rolled across Europe, crushing millions of Jews along the way. László survived the Holocaust and, finally, made his way to a faraway land—a land of the free, so they say. A land of opportunity.
But that opportunity comes at a cost.
All the opportunity László wants is, for now, to live. Taken in by a cousin, Attila, László is put to work in Attila’s Philadelphia furniture store. It specializes in cheap, practical wares. “Not very beautiful,” László says when he sees them. Attila readily agrees. And when László designs a chair for the store—clean, sleek, modern, minimalist—it draws attention.
Soon, Harry Lee Van Buren, scion of a wealthy industrialist, comes calling, asking if Attila and Lazlo might freshen up his father’s library.
They do. Down go the heavy curtains, the dark wood, the thick rug. The library transforms into a mass of metal and glass, space and sun. One solitary chair sits at its center.
Turns out, the father, Harrison Lee Van Buren, hates surprises. When he returns home and finds László and Atilla in the house, he screams at them to leave. Harry refuses to pay their bill. And Atilla, believing that László has designs on his wife, kicks him to the curb.
But the library survives. And it’s a sensation.
Years later, Harrison—realizing now that he had screamed at a rare architectural talent—searches high and low for László Tóth, eventually finding him digging coal. Harrison shows him the magazine spreads written about his magnificent library. Then he shows the one-time architect more magazines, featuring his still-standing buildings in Eastern Europe. László, seeing them, weeps.
“It is no coincidence that fate brought us together,” Harrison tells him. In fact, Harrison has a job for him. He wants László to design a monumental community center for Harrison—a center so different, so new, so grand that it will take the world by storm.
And there’s more: Harrison just might be able to help László reunite with his wife and niece—both who are, miraculously, alive.
Home? Perhaps, after all these years, László has found one. But it, too, may come with a cost.
The Brutalist brims with difficult, deeply flawed characters. We can laud László for his talent and resilience; but his arrogance and addictions undercut his narrative status. Perhaps we could praise Harrison for his role in bringing László the recognition he deserves and for bringing his family to the U.S., but he’s no hero, either.
Erzsébet Tóth is perhaps the film’s most admirable character—though she’s far from perfect, either. She’s devoted to her husband, and she also encourages him to push back against Harrison when she believes László’s not being treated fairly. And in the wake of a heinous act, she alone dares to stand up and confront the guilty party.
We should also call out another man named Gordon, who becomes László’s most constant friend. Their friendship is jumpstarted by an act of casual kindness by László (who offers to stand in a bread line so that Gordon can take care of his young son). That friendship takes a deeply problematic turn into mutual drug use, but Gordon eventually shakes that monkey off his back. He sticks with László to nearly the end of the movie—and that’s saying something.
When the movie begins, László is a deeply devout Jew, attending synagogue faithfully every week. Erzsébet is, too. But while her faith never waivers (and takes some curiously mystical turns, including her insistence that God Himself has given her permission to call Him by His name.), László begins to lose interest in the faith. In a letter, Erzsébet frets that he’s not going to synagogue anymore. “He worships the altar of only himself,” she writes.
Much later in the story, Erzsébet and László’s niece, Zsófia, announces that she and her Jewish fiancée are emigrating to the newly created nation of Israel. “It is our obligation,” they say, and they invite Erzsébet and László to come.
Harrison wants to include a Christian chapel as part of his planned community center. Some express worry that László’s Jewish faith could prevent him from doing an adequate job with this most spiritual of places, but László does his best to dispel those doubts. And his design includes an incredibly clever device: The building will be constructed in such a way that, at noon, the sun will form a cross on an otherwise empty marble altar.
We hear news reports about an impending Jewish state. Characters offer God’s blessings. László and Gordon sleep in a charity bunk house set up in the sanctuary of a church. A sign on a city street says, “Jesus saves.” We learn that Atilla converted to Catholicism. Churches are seen in what appear to be educational videos. We learn that László designed several churches.
When László first arrives in the United States, about the first thing he and a compatriot do is find a brothel and have sex. (We should note that, at this point in the story, he and Erzsébet both spent time in separate concentration camps, and he’s not aware whether Erzsébet is alive or dead.) We see the compatriot and a prostitute fully nude and engaged in erotic activities. László’s own companion kneels before the shirtless immigrant to unbuckle his trousers, though László seems to be less eager to participate: The madame tells László that they have “boys” if he would prefer it.
Later, when he’s living in a spare room attached to Attila’s furniture store, Attila forces his wife, Audrey, and László to dance together as part of a drunken celebration. The two do so, reluctantly, as they both seem to be repressing mutual attraction. Soon thereafter, Attila accuses László of making a pass at his wife and throws him out of the room and Attila’s business.
When László and Erzsébet reunite, we discover that Erzsébet is stricken by a condition that keeps her largely bound to a wheelchair.
“You can touch me,” she tells him, inviting him into intimacy.
“I don’t want to hurt you, physically,” László tells her.
“I know what you’ve done, László,” Erzsébet says—saying that she saw every illicit affair he engaged in, somehow, psychically. “It’s all right.” Erzsébet admits that she’s fantasized about him a great deal, and about this moment, but László still seems physically disinterested. (The film suggests that he continues to have dalliances outside marriage, and Erzsébet seems to masturbate in a bathtub at one juncture.) The two do have a relatively graphic intimate encounter, though.
Their mute niece, Zsófia, whom they’ve essentially adopted as their daughter, draws the lecherous attention of Harry, Harrison’s son. He makes lewd remarks about Zsófia to László, and László warns her to stay away from the cad—but perhaps too late. In an earlier scene, we see Harry sidle up to Zsófia by the side of a stream; the next time we see the both of them, they’re returning to a larger clutch of picnic-goers, straightening their clothes. (There’s an unsettling feeling that whatever happened, Zsófia had very little say about it.)
We hear that Harrison was born out of wedlock, and that the family of Harrison’s mother essentially threw her out because of it.
Someone kicks a construction worker. A man knocks out a cane that a woman is using for support, sending her sprawling on the floor. Some intense arguments seem about to spill over into violence. Someone nearly dies from a drug overdose. Two people nearly die in a car accident. A stained-glass dome crashes to the ground.
The Holocaust hangs over the early parts of the story. We learn that László was severely injured during the war, and he complains of nearly constant pain. Erzsébet also suffers agony from her own condition, sometimes screaming in pain in the evening.
A massive train derailment kills several people. We see the accident from a bird’s eye view—distant from the carnage but still witness to the fire and smoke.
[Spoiler Warning] A drunk Harrison rapes László—also very drunk—in a Hungarian alley. László keeps the assault largely secret, though one surmises that the attack may be a factor in László’s increasingly erratic behavior and angry outbursts. When Erzsébet finally learns of the rape, she confronts Harrison during a small dinner party: Harrison leaves the scene shortly thereafter and simply disappears. We never hear what happens to him, but some might surmise that the industrialist committed suicide.
Seven f-words and one s-word. We also hear “b–ch,” “b–tard,” “d–n” and “h—.” God’s name is misused about 10 times—six of those with “d—n.” Jesus’ name is abused once.
For much of the movie, László is a heroin addict. It’s suggested he gravitated to the drug because of his ever-present pain; but it soon becomes simply a way of life for him and Gordon, who often seems to be László’s only friend. The two spend László’s money on the stuff. And when Harrison invites László to live on his estate while László works on the community center, Gordon essentially lives with him at first—both using every chance they get. (Gordon eventually gets clean—confessing as much to László when the architect asks him for the drug.
László keeps this heroin secret from Erzsébet. But when she runs out of her own pain medication, he injects her with heroin in desperation—an act with nearly fatal consequences.
Most of the movie’s characters drink, and sometimes quite heavily. Two characters get falling-down drunk, setting up perhaps The Brutalist’s most pivotal scenes. Another evening of inebriation leads, perhaps, to some bad blood that wrecks László’s relationship with Attila. Drinking to excess almost always leads to bad behavior—which, I guess, makes what happens here a bit of a backhanded cautionary tale.
László, Harrison and others also smoke. We hear news reports about the scourge of heroin on the streets.
The Brutalist is awash in antisemitism and discrimination. Certainly, László and his family survived the Holocaust—the ultimate, most horrific expression of anti-Jewish hatred. But they experience discrimination in the States, too—certainly more subtle, but terrible all the same.
While Harrison is certainly László’s generous benefactor and acknowledges the man’s architectural genius, he belittles László, too: Harrison flips a coin in his and Erzsébet’s direction, telling Erzsébet that perhaps she can teach László how to speak better; Harrison then asks László to pick the coin off the floor and hand it back. He says “you people” to László at times (referencing the Jewish people, of course, and possibly to László’s Hungarian heritage), sometimes with smug paternalism, other times with outright hostility. (He compares László to a dog at one point as well.) Harry, even as he talks with lewd intention about Zsófia, denigrates her Jewish heritage, too. And Audrey, Attila’s wife, tells László that she knows someone “who can take a look at your nose,” perhaps in reference to an injury that László suffered, but perhaps because of its stereotypical prominence.
We also see that Atilla’s own changes when he moved to America—from changing his last name to Miller to starting to go to church—were an effort to blend in, not a result of a true religious conversion. At one point, László tells Erzsébet, “They do not want us here.” And László has plenty of data at his fingertips to prove his point.
People vomit.
Brutalism is not a lovely architectural expression. Even its fans can admit that much, I think. It’s about concrete and glass; sharp angles; and unforgiving, almost eternal, solidity. But those with an eye for it, see something beautiful within: The stark gray walls reveal unexpected revelations of light and shade. Brutalism’s grand, forbidding interiors can soar upward, reaching toward the heavens.
Perhaps the characters at the core of The Brutalist are more representative of that architectural expression. Both László and Harrison, even at face value, can be literally brutal. But there’s a hardness to both of them—and especially in László’s case, a hardness that grows—like cement on cement, layered over time, cured through pain.
They are very different from one another. And both are incredibly flawed. But together, they aspired to construct something beautiful, something almost eternal. As László says, “My buildings were designed to endure such erosion.”
The Brutalist is, fittingly, a hard film to easily embrace. It’s nearly four hours long, for one thing. And its problematic content can make this a jagged story—hard to watch, hard to absorb. It can be uncomfortably sensual and casually horrific: One scene in particular might be among the year’s most psychologically disturbing (if not, in itself, overly graphic).
It has charmed many a critic, though: A whopping 93% of Rotten Tomatoes’ reviewers give the film an enthusiastic thumbs up, and it’s an awards-season darling heading into the Oscars.
Perhaps, like Harrison’s beautiful library, The Brutalist is an acquired taste.
For this reviewer, the film feels a lot like László’s buildings: impressive, yes, and with moments of unexpected beauty and power. But it’s a cold, hard thing, too. Not one that I’d like to spend a lot of time in.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
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