The Brutalist (2024) Review: What Destination?

by Morrigan Fogarty and Alžbeta Szabová

The Brutalist (2024) is an elegy detailing the struggles of assimilation, the times of European emigration to the United States, and how the totalising force of discrimination leaves migrants to America, destitute, and fundamentally silenced. It also has a strange relationship to Zionism and no understanding of Central Europe. Spoilers follow.

              Adrien Brody stars as László Tóth, unable to properly pronounce his own last name and supported by a language-enhancing AI, the actor is still unable to convincingly show us any signs of Hungarian identity. The same goes for co-star Felicity Jones, who simply has her Hungarian lines dubbed over. This is a fitting encapsulation of the issues central to the film: It wants, on one hand, to portray authenticity (Brody allegedly “learned Hungarian” for the film) and on the other hand, is fine not having any Hungarian actors, and instead uses the nationality of its characters as a simple marker, telling the audience (quite ironically) that they are just strange European Jewish foreigners. This is not to say that the film is bad—the cinematography and core message at the core of the film are fantastic—but there are issues.

              The overarching plot of the film is as follows: We are shown László as he arrives in America in 1947, unbeknownst to him, his wife and niece are alive in Hungary (being forcibly interrogated by mysterious Hungarian forces, again a strange choice, as there is no discussion of post-war Hungary) and he sets off to create a life for himself. László, his wife, and his niece are all survivors of the Holocaust, and this provides a central reason for their separation. But as László begins his life in America, this aspect of his identity is completely ignored, instead focusing on how his life goes awry and his eventual employment under Harrison van Buren. Van Buren is an interesting character in and of himself: a wealthy industrialist whose ambition is encapsulated by strange notions of old money, cultural representations of power and vanity projects. After his employment, László is told he can have his wife and niece brought to America.

The film cuts for a brief intermission, and afterwards, László sets out to work on a massive architectural vanity project for Van Buren. He is seen having to defend his involvement in the project and it’s unclear if the locals who oppose this construction are being antisemitic, anti-communist, or just anti-immigrant. The film makes no choice to interrogate this. The movie doesn’t fully properly explore how identity and discrimination are interrelated, which unfortunately stands against the overall theme of the film, in that the migrant identities must fall to the assimilative forces of American culture. The Hungarians are never shown to be, well, Hungarian. Instead, the film opts to reify their Jewishness overshadowing other factors of their identity. This almost works in the film's favour—we hear how László was trained at Bauhaus in Dessau, and how his works will stand the test of time in Budapest. It’s comical that every mention of his life, before the film starts, seems tailored to an American audience who will understand these references, suggesting a need for László to portray his life in Hungary in a specific, understandable way.[1] The film doesn’t properly comment on this, to its detriment. That, and the film's possible Zionist messages.

              Zsófia, Laszlo's niece, is a Zionist. In one scene years later she announced that she and her new husband are moving to the state of Israel. László is not a Zionist. He reacts negatively, he asks why they can’t stay in the United States; if they are not also Jewish if they do not go to Israel; if Zsófia’s new husband even recognises László ‘s wife Erzsébet (who converted to Judaism) as Jewish. This is the first time we hear Zsófia speak. It introduces a whole new element to the story, one that makes the focus on László’s Jewishness make sense. It invokes a conversation about how Jewish families felt in 50’s America. They were exploited and degraded. Why not move to a country that purports to be built for them? The film doesn’t talk about Palestine. It does not talk about the Nakba. Zsófia says Israel is safer than America, László disagrees, and he is then destroyed by America as the film continues. Ultimately, the film is about the rot of America and the horrors inflicted on people trying to come to a new country to make a better life. It is not a film about Zionism. It’s easy to see how this scene, this conversation is relevant to the lived experience of Jewish immigrants to America. Israel is mentioned one more time in the film proper. At one of the lowest points of the film, Erzsébet overdoses on heroin, and László rushes her to the hospital. After recovering she says she’s moving to be with Zsófia and László responds that he will “follow her”.

              In the next scene, we see a stronger Erzsébet, who after being confined to a wheelchair is now walking into the Van Buren estate. She walks into their dinner, and in front of the Van Buren family relays to them that she has learned Harrison Lee Van Buren is a rapist, and that he raped László on their trip to Italy, a brutal scene that we see earlier. The reaction of the Van Burens is the most phenomenal moment in the film, here we have a perfect encapsulation of the United States. The weakened downtrodden find their voice, speaking to those who have abused them unabated, and how do those in power respond? In two ways, the son becomes outraged and violent, attacking Erzsébet, and Harrison Lee Van Buren vanishes, never to be seen again. It shows the fascism at the core of America, it shows how, when confronted with the brutality of its own existence, when its horrid actions are exposed to light the American Empire can only respond in two ways: violence, or self-destruction. What a fantastic ending. Unfortunately, the film has an epilogue.

              During the epilogue we see Zsófia speaking at a conference for architects in Italy in the 1980s. She is speaking for László, who we see old and frail in a wheelchair. She gives a pithy speech, ending with a strange pop-psychology remark about how “it's not about the journey, but the destination”. What a strange thing to say, when we have seen how the journey has been nothing but horrid actions undertaken against the downtrodden. Is this the journey she speaks of? And what is the destination? It’s hard not to read it as Israel, to ignore the fact that it sounds like Zsófia is now saying that all of the horrible things that happened on and off-screen are fine, actually, because the state of Israel exists now and the Jewish people don’t have to suffer as László did. What a weird way to interpret the story we just sat through! This is not entirely supported by the film. It’s very possible to read this epilogue as nothing but more brutality. László is weak and old, and we see that he didn’t go to Israel. The architecture being exhibited is all built in America. So then, is the film saying something else, that we valorise and interpret the horrors of the past to justify horrors in the present? Are we supposed to think about Israel's actions in Gaza, and think “Oh, maybe this film is actually anti-Zionist!”. I don’t know. It’s ambiguous, and while that might get the film some praise, I think it’s cowardly. I want a movie that takes a stand, not one that leaves me wondering if the creators of the movie even watched their own film. I feel so strongly about this because otherwise, I think the film is a phenomenal takedown of the myth of the United States. Even with that it still leaves a strange sour taste.

[1]Another example is László’s wife Erzsébet’s disability. When László sees her for the first time after she comes to America, she tells him that she has lost the ability to walk due to “the Famine”. As there has been no famine in Hungary since around the 13th century, this appears to be the writers conflating more known events from Eastern Europe’s history (like the Ukrainian Famine of the 1930s) together, not bothering to get the time and place right. A more favourable reading is that she is simply referring to the Holocaust - but then the word ‘famine’ feels out of place.