SILVER

In writer/director Brady Corbet’s third feature film, a seven-year undertaking with co-writer Mona Fastvold, Adrien Brody plays László Tóth, a Hungarian-born Jewish architect who flees Europe after the end of World War II to start afresh in America. Living amidst poverty in Philadelphia, and longing to be reunited with wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) and niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), László wins a contract from wealthy and morally bankrupt industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce) after demonstrating his keen eye through a home renovation project, transforming a shrouded library into a modernist masterpiece. The new enterprise, a monumental building that will serve as both a community center and a tribute to Van Buren’s late mother, may prove to be László’s undoing, as the ambitious architect pours every fiber of his being into its creation. Clocking in at an engrossing three-and-a-half hours, including intermission, THE BRUTALIST is an astonishing work of art that recalls the sweeping epics of 1970s American cinema through a combination of gorgeous cinematography by Lol Crawley (shooting in the rarely-used VistaVision format), extraordinary production design by Judy Becker and a delicate yet powerful score by Daniel Blumberg. At the center of all this is Brody’s visceral, emotional turn as László, mining depths unseen since his award-winning performance in 2002’s THE PIANIST. –Javier Chavez

Official Selection, 2024 Venice, Toronto and New York film festivals. DIR/SCR Brady Corbet; SCR Mona Fastvold; PROD Nick Gordon, D.J. Gugenheim, Andrew Lauren, Trevor Matthews, Andrew Morrison, Brian Young. U.S./UK/Hungary, 2024, color, 215 min. including 15-min. intermission. In English, Hungarian, Yiddish, Hebrew and Italian with English subtitles. RATED R