Director Brady Corbet filming “The Brutalist.” (Courtesy of Trevor Matthews)

Brady Corbet’s “The Brutalist” is a highly ambitious, poignant and unflinching look at America and the way it treats immigrants. The film — like the buildings that László Tóth designs — is a grand, ambitious piece that examines the way an immigrant is chewed up by America. The structure of the protagonist’s American dream is one that is crumbling at the foundation.

“The Brutalist” has been celebrated as one of the top films of the past year, receiving massive critical acclaim since its festival debut in September 2024. It has won and is nominated for an avalanche of awards, including winning Best Drama at the Golden Globes, and is in the running for Best Picture at the Academy Awards in March 2025.

The film follows László Tóth (Adrien Brody), a brilliant Jewish-Hungarian architect who survives World War II and immigrates to America to work with his cousin and begin a new life. While finding his footing and trying to bring his wife and niece over to him, Tóth becomes involved with an energetic American industrialist after his is commissioned (as a surprise) to remodel a library in his house. After the industrialist takes a liking to Tóth, he asks him to build a bold new structure on his property.

Tóth begins an ambitious new architectural project, reminiscent of his early work in Hungary that comes to consume his life. Tóth’s new surroundings start to eat away at him and his identity.

“The Brutalist’s” themes feel like a splash of ice water to the face in the way they force the audience to face a cold reality. Tóth, a poor, battered immigrant, is manipulated and used by his contemporaries who claim to revere him for his work. In America, those around him are in awe of his talent but look down upon him as an outsider, an “other.” Tóth finds himself at the bottom of a power dynamic inherent to the American immigrant experience.

The film uses experimental and sometimes disorienting cinematography and musical elements to convey the disillusionment Tóth begins to feel. The grand score is often accented by disparate piano keys, creating an off putting feeling. 

When Tóth crosses paths with Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), he eventually receives an opportunity to resume his career in architecture with a bold new project. However, it becomes clear that the project means more to Tóth than anyone else involved. Tóth devotes his heart and soul into the building, to the point where it begins to erode his personal relationships. To Van Buren, however, the project seems to be more of a passion project, something to throw his vast wealth into. He allows Tóth to reside on his property, but the way he treats him is reminiscent of a pet or new car. To Van Buren, Tóth is merely an exotic new thing to show his friends at parties. It is learned during the epilogue of the film that Tóth used his project in part to immortalize his experience in a concentration camp which takes place before the events of the movie. 

Courtesy of A24

This becomes clear in a scene toward the halfway point of the film where Tóth — freshly reunited with his family — is sitting at Van Buren’s dinner table. An interaction plays out involving Van Buren tossing a penny across the table at Tóth, invoking a demeaning Jewish stereotype, and then forcing him to pick the penny up and hand it back to him. This is done only to enforce the power dynamic which exists between Tóth and Van Buren. Van Buren seeks to remind Tóth that he will never be accepted as an American. He is able to do this because he supports Tóth financially, puts a roof over his head and gives him work to support his family. In doing so, Van Buren has absolute power over Tóth, leaving him with no leverage to defend himself. 

Tóth’s outsider status is apparent in virtually every interaction he has in America. His thick accent and non-Christian religious customs serve as a constant reminder of his non-assimilation. With every racist, antisemitic or xenophobic interaction he has, another crack forms in his American dream of achieving freedom and safety for his family.

The inverted, shaky shot of the Statue of Liberty at the beginning of the film foreshadows the distorted and perverted American experience that Tóth is about to have. He is abused and taken advantage of by the people he worked so hard to join in a new continent. He is saved from the fascists of Europe but is thrown into the mouth of American nativism. His new home threatens to take everything from him: his religious identity, his family and his lifelong passion.

However, there is something easily glossed over after watching three and a half hours of a man’s life falling apart at the seams — in a way, he wins. 

By the end of the film, Van Buren is exposed as a truly despicable man — whether his family will admit or not — and Tóth goes on to have a triumphant architectural career. The family he still has remains together, and importantly, he builds a synagogue. This somewhat subtle detail is possibly one of the most important at the end of the film. Tóth building the temple seems to be a signal that he has held onto his identity against the forces that threaten to rip it away from him the entire film. Despite the “Land of the Free’s” best efforts to take everything from him, Tóth survives his American nightmare.