'The Brutalist': Let's unpack the emotional twist ending of the Oscar movie

Spoiler alert! We're discussing major details about the ending of "The Brutalist" (in theaters now nationwide). Beware if you haven't seen it yet.

It is the destination – not the journey.

That’s the stirring final line of “The Brutalist,” which earned a whopping 10 Oscar nominations on Thursday including best picture and best actor (Adrien Brody). The sentiment resonates with Brody, 51, who portrays a fictional Hungarian-Jewish architect named László Tóth in the post-World War II epic.

“It’s a very interesting and really beautiful observation,” Brody says. “While you’re enduring a journey, there’s a lot of sacrifice needed for an artist to leave behind their work. Therefore, there is validity in the destination having importance.”

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In the sprawling movie’s first half, László immigrates to America after the Holocaust, where he’s commissioned to build an extravagant community center for Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce), a charismatic yet bigoted benefactor. The film ends decades later in 1980 Venice, where an ailing László is being feted with a retrospective of his work. There, it’s revealed that László essentially Trojan horsed a tribute to his family within the structure, which he subtly designed to resemble the concentration camps that imprisoned them.

“The Brutalist” director Brady Corbet and his co-writer/partner, Mona Fastvold, open up about the movie’s finale and that catchy end-credits song:

What is the meaning of 'The Brutalist' ending?

There’s a reason “The Brutalist” begins and ends with shots of Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy), László’s orphaned teenage niece, who is played as an adult in the final scene by Ariane Labed. At the Italian exhibition, she delivers a speech celebrating her uncle’s defiantly personal architecture.

“If you talk about legacy, it’s not really in the brilliant things you create,” Fastvold says. “It’s the love you leave behind and the people you paved the way for: in László’s case, his niece. At the peak of his career, he’s quite ill; he’s lost his wife; he’s there surrounded by all his work and it’s his niece speaking for him.

“The twist of the movie is that it’s a love story in the end,” Fastvold adds. “This obsession (with his architecture) is ultimately an expression of love and processing his trauma. We came to that conclusion fairly early on, but it was something that happened intuitively once we really started writing and got the characters under our skin.”

The movie is a tribute to the filmmakers’ young daughter, Ada, who accompanied them to the Golden Globes earlier this month.

“Projects take a lot out of you; you don’t even remember what drove you to such madness,” Corbet says. “At the end of my life, I don’t think what I’ll be proudest of is my body of work. It’ll be our daughter.”

What is the final song in 'The Brutalist' movie?

“The Brutalist” is, by all accounts, a capital-S serious film, with a lush score by Daniel Blumberg that evokes a sense of both grandeur and dread. So it’s surprising to then end the movie with the plunky “One for You, One for Me,” a 1978 disco anthem by La Bionda. It’s a frenetic love song that also captures the concessions one is forced to make as an artist: László gave Harrison his community center, but found a way to make it personally fulfilling as well.

“It’s quite cheeky,” Fastvold says of the tune. “I really enjoy leaving the audience with that jolt of energy.”

Initially, they considered using Erasure’s similarly jaunty “Stop!” from 1988.

“It’s about reconnecting, and it’s also a post-disco track from the period,” Corbet says. “But for a variety of reasons, ‘One for You, One for Me’ won out. Also, La Bionda is an Italian band and the film ends in Italy. What’s funny, though, is that Vince Clarke – who co-founded Erasure and Depeche Mode – actually collaborated with Daniel on the synth version of the score that you hear in Venice.”

What happens to László Tóth (Adrien Brody) in 'The Brutalist'?

Much of the film explores the uneasy dynamic between László and Harrison, who looks down on the Jewish immigrant but never says so outright. In a stomach-churning scene in the second half of the movie, Harrison rapes the intoxicated László as he’s slumped over puking in an alley.

“The assault is purely about jealousy and power,” Fastvold says. “Harrison isn’t content with only possessing the art – he wants to possess the artist.” In earlier scenes, “Guy and Adrien have this incredible chemistry that’s quite electric and adds an interesting layer to it. But from a writer’s perspective, it’s not about sexuality at all. It’s an operatic image about control.”

After the assault, László retreats inward, becoming angry and closed off. He eventually confides in Erzsébet, who goes to Harrison’s house and confronts him in front of his family and business associates.

“It was important to subvert the audience’s expectations,” Corbet says. “It’s a film about László, but he’s barely in the last 30 minutes. It’s his wife who fights his battle for him because he’s too ashamed to." In the opening sequence, it's inferred that she was also sexually assaulted on multiple occasions during the war. But ultimately, "she has a much healthier relationship with her trauma and what she's been through. He has not processed his at all."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'The Brutalist' ending explained: What happens to László Tóth?