Brady Corbet’s third feature is a genuinely astonishing act of filmmaking — a three-and-a-half-hour epic shot in VistaVision that announces him as one of the defining voices of his generation. Adrien Brody’s career-best performance as Hungarian-Jewish architect Laszlo Toth anchors a film that encompasses immigration, art, capitalism, trauma, and the very nature of creative ambition.
The Architecture of an Epic
The structure mirrors Brutalist architecture itself: monolithic, uncompromising, confrontational. The first act establishes Toth’s arrival in postwar America, working in a relative’s furniture store. The second, after an intermission, jumps forward to his commission for a monumental arts complex by a Pennsylvania industrialist (Guy Pearce, never better).
The TDW Verdict
A masterpiece. The kind of film that reshapes your understanding of what cinema can be. The best film of 2024 by a considerable distance.