The Brutalist (2024)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 1/2

The “Citizen Kane” of its time. And I don’t say that lightly, especially as someone who’s been forced to endure Kane multiple times in film classes.

Brutal is the only word that fits—a film that smashes its characters against the stone of life over and over. At its core, it follows a Holocaust survivor, an architect, trying to rebuild in America with the twisted “help” of a sadistic, wealthy patron.

The Brutalist hits heights few films even dare to reach. Searing commentary, visuals that belong in a museum, performances that cut deep, and timeless truths about humanity—it’s everything I go to the movies for.

The architecture isn’t just set design, it’s a character in itself: looming, precise, and suffocating in its perfection. You feel its weight pressing down on every scene.

Yes, the runtime drags. No, it doesn’t ruin it. Give me an intermission and I’ll forgive all sins.