It’s Brutal(ly Long) | The Brutalist (2024) Movie Review | #OscarsHomework
“punishingly hard or uncomfortable,” defines the OED. Mmmhm… 🙂↕️
I LiveSky film reviews over on BlueSky, and then piece them together with commentary to make my full reviews here on Medium before they go to Letterbox’d. Please subscribe anywhere/everywhere you can for more of my shenanigans…
a few words about The Brutalist
You my be noticing a trend in my bleets. This movie is too long. We’re going to talk about a lot of stuff, so let me just lead off with that: it’s way too long.
What would I cut? I don’t know — maybe the dozen atmospheric, minutes-long interstitial B-roll scenes that bear only tangential relevance to the plot? That probably only gets you 10 minutes, but it wouldn’t be a bad place to start.
Holy fucking shit, this movie is up for Best Editing. That’s insane. I’m not convinced there’s any footage Brady Corbet has ever shot in his life that isn’t contributing to the runtime of this ponderous (excellent) film.
So before I get into the context for this one: The Brutalist is really, really good. It’s excellent. It’s not a 5-star film, though, because for my money, 5-star films are paced well and don’t stretch out over four days of viewing. Never has #OscarsHomework felt more like homework.
Show Business, not Show Friends
I regret to inform you all that AMC Factoria 8 and I have mutually decided to part ways.
While I will cherish the less-than-two-months I worked there, and those not-quite-40 days and nights will forever impact me and have helped shape me into the person I am today, after much reflection and prayer, I have decided to take my talents elsewhere.
I will happily speak on behalf of both myself and AMC Factoria 8 when I say they we both wish each other only the very best, and we part as friends.
As to why we’ve decided to pursue mutually-exclusive paths, the decision was entirely mine, and was reached only after much thought and personal introspection.
For a moment, I’d like to address rumors I’ve been hearing, rumors like: I was ‘wrongfully terminated’ by a ‘literally-insane, comically-dumb general manager’ who accused me of the literal felony of ‘getting someone high against their will,’ by ‘smoking marijuana, aka weed, in the company breakroom’ to such a point that an unnamed, anonymous source had to be rushed to the hospital and missed a shift.
I feel like it hardly bears saying, and yet I suppose I must say: those would be the actions of a moronic, deranged lunatic.
And I ask you: would the fine folks at American Multi-Cinema — the largest cinema chain in the world, proudly founded in the worst city in the United States of America, Kansas City — employ such a deranged lunatic for literally years? Hm?
So I need say no more about that, I presume.
On to the film.
The Brutalist (2024) Movie Review | #OscarsHomework
There is one constant, consistent refrain throughout my bleets on my The Brutalist watch:
“Way too long.”
I bleeted that Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones (nominated for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress) each have the strongest case in their respective categories, and I strongly suspect both will win, though Best Supporting Actress is kind of a Murderer’s Row. It wouldn’t shock me for Monica Barbaro to win for A Complete Unknown or Ariana Grande to win for Wicked, but it would shock me if Fiennes (Conclave), Stan (The Apprentice) or even Timothée Chalamet, whose impression of Bob Dylan was pretty flawless in A Complete Unknown, but, like, Brody created a character whole cloth, based solely on words from a script that couldn’t have been more than 300 total pages. Plus, László Tóth is ten times the character even on the page that Bob Dylan ever has been even in real life and — sadly — Chalamet’s performance as Dylan wasn’t that nuanced, because — given the subject — not much nuance was called for.
So if I were my bookie — or a bookie, I mean — I would handicap both Brody and Jones as heavy favorites, though Grande, Barbaro and even Rossellini (for Lifetime Achievement, if not for this specific performance) have made compelling arguments.
Ugh, who cares about awards, though? Certainly not the reviewer who just spent several paragraphs discussing them.
I think Adrien Brody as László Tóth and Felicity Jones as Erzsébet Tóth turned in the two best performances I saw in or on film this last year. The way I know it is that I don’t think of them as an Adrien Brody performance or a Felicity Jones performance. The characters of László and Erzsébet are very real to me, certainly more so than the two actors I’ve never met.
If I can forget entirely, or nearly forget, who is even in the role, playing the character I’m actually thinking of, that’s what I think acting is all about.
Was I perhaps a little worked up about being thrown out of the AMC I once worked at, and impatient for the film to get going so I could ignore my emotions?
No. This movie is too unhurried. For my tastes, I should say.
But I’m either hopelessly cynical/pessimistic or right: I think anyone who says this thing is perfectly-paced and gives an enthusiastic ‘no-notes’ thumbs up is just telling the showbiz emperor his new clothes look great.
It’s too long.
Might it have been a better miniseries? Limited miniseries, as in the sort that Letterbox’d for some reason includes in their index?
Maybe, but then you don’t get Brody, Jones or Oscars. And don’t doubt for a second that this film was after those little gold men.
I’m fairly confident when I say: I get it. The interstitial B-Roll stuff, like… I get it. I do. It’s artistic, it’s setting a mood — honestly, in any given moment, I found myself going, ‘this is working.’
Yet it took me four days to watch this goddamn thing.
Honestly, Zack Snyder’s Justice League only took me five days to watch because I was bleeting about how terrible it was and how incensed I was by its filmmaking every four to six seconds of movie runtime.
I put my phone away and just watched The Brutalist after about 25–30 minutes.
Once again (as in The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent; I’ve got to let that go, though), I look like a complete asshole.
Let me explain my process:
Most movies don’t impress me. Most movies don’t require or deserve anything approaching my full attention. Most movies do dumb enough things that I can furiously tap out some dubiously-spelled jokes at their expense without, like, failing to appreciate some Beauty or Truth in the film.
But sometimes, movies are really good. It’s happened a handful of times, even.
When they are, I want to become absorbed in them, perhaps taking notes (which has never detracted from my movie-watching experiences one iota, though it is hard to do in the dark), but ultimately devoting myself to exploring and experiencing the world that the filmmaker(s) created.
So when I get the sense that this is going to be a flawless film or film I will not have wanted to tweet through (I think this still qualifies as that, though I’d love to now have a chain of bleets saying over and over again how long it was, which I kind of do still have), I call it, and just watch.
Guy Pearce, by the way, nominated for Best Supporting Actor, as well. So AMPAS seems to feel, and I concur, that this film had some of or all of the best acting performances going.
And I get how this could happen — if I’m the editor or director, I’m looking at every frame of this going, ‘what could we possibly cut?’ I think that’s probably why it has an intermission. Everyone knows this thing is too dang long, but every minute piece of it is so integral and so rich and so carefully-crafted that it would be hard to think of where you’d start cutting.
Well, actually, I did address earlier where I’d start. But even those vibey tone poems work, moment-to-moment. As I was watching, each one didn’t feel overlong for what it was trying to achieve, and they’re all effective palate-cleansers that serve as thematic resonating chambers. But as the moments continue to mount, they do get almost galling.
I don’t know. Your mileage may vary, in terms of how appallingly too-long you think The Brutalist is. Maybe, to you, the emperor’s new clothes are not only real, but absolutely stunning.
Great! I’m sincerely thrilled for you. But if you’re asking me, this thing is too long, and its message, theme and impact were lessened significantly every time I had to check my watch (which is my phone).
The Brutalist should still absolutely clean up in March, though.
But if it wins for Best Editing, I might honestly lose it.
