Oscar frontrunner The Brutalist is a colossal cinematic achievement

“Is there a better description of a cube than that of its construction?” says the architect László Tóth (Adrien Brody). He’s a brutalist – the one described by the title of Brady Corbet’s new film, which has been nominated for 10 Oscars. His is an architectural language of simplicity and honesty. László, trained at the Bauhaus art school and once renowned in his field, is a Jewish survivor of the Buchenwald concentration camp, whose arrival to America has rendered him anonymous once more. He learns, over time, that many of his creations withstood the war; their constructions have continued to speak for him even in his absence.

What’s been heavily advertised – The Brutalist’s 215-minute running time, including a built-in, 15-minute interval; the use of the high-resolution, widescreen VistaVision format, which hasn’t been deployed for a full American feature since 1963; and the distribution of the film on 70mm prints – isn’t simply the fetishistic marker of an old school auteurist. Because there is no better description of The Brutalist than of its construction.

It’s not a film to devour, but to be devoured by. There’s such a weight to it that it creates its own field of gravity – which, coupled with the same fierce cynicism of Corbet’s previous films, The Childhood of a Leader (2015) and his pop star psychodrama Vox Lux (2018), turns a traditional historical epic into an existentially disturbing monster movie. The monster in question, of course, is America.

László, at first, seeks out his cousin Attila (Alessandro Nivola), who owns a furniture store in Philadelphia. He’s stripped his last name of any Jewish features and married a Catholic woman (Emma Laird). He also suppresses his Hungarian accent as best he can, though Nivola does an exemplary job of letting that voice slip on occasion, of presenting us with a man forever walking the tightrope of assimilation. László and Attila are hired by Harry (Joe Alwyn), son of industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce, who adds a poison-tipped polish that proves deeply menacing), to renovate his father’s library.

Harrison is outraged, at first, and refuses to pay. It’s only when he’s approached by Look magazine for a feature, and discovers László’s past achievements, that he reverses his position. He doesn’t understand brutalism, but he’s excited by his new proximity to genius, and so welcomes the architect as his new intellectual plaything. Harrison’s home, Doylestown, is “not a cultural place”, and so he dreams of a monument to his late mother, a cultural centre complete with an auditorium, gymnasium, reading room, and chapel.

But László feels half-made without the presence of his beloved wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), who’s stuck behind in Europe with his niece Zsófia (Raffey Cassidy). When they finally arrive, Erzsébet becomes possessed by the idea they are no longer like themselves and that he must feel shame in her. And, as time goes on, that spiritual separation grows only sharper and crueller. She comes to fear that, obsessed with his work and methodically demolished by Harrison’s dehumanisation, he now “worships at the altar of only himself”. Zsófia, meanwhile, becomes steadfast in her conviction that their problems will be solved by moving to Israel, despite her parents’ protestations. What The Brutalist makes clear is America’s role as an active participant in both these beliefs.

Brody, as in his Oscar-winning role in The Pianist, carries emotion in such a vivid and striking way that we can see, manifested, the physical effects of László’s trauma, the hope leached from his thin and elegant body. Cinematographer Lol Crawley captures him perfectly – the harsh, unbending shadows of brutalist architecture cast equally across the faces of the film’s characters.

In one of her letters, Erzsébet quotes the German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who believe that they are free.” What is left of László at the end of his project? What is left of any of these people? It’s the question that Corbet, and his co-writer and partner Mona Fastvold, have confronted in rich detail, while leaving the ultimate answer for ourselves to decide. Yet the soul-sick feeling at the heart of The Brutalist remains, as indestructible and absolute as the buildings at its centre.

Dir: Brady Corbet. Starring: Adrien Brody, Felicity Jones, Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn, Raffey Cassidy, Stacy Martin, Emma Laird, Isaach de Bankolé, Alessandro Nivola. Cert 18, 215 mins.

‘The Brutalist’ is in cinemas from 24 January