“I will never leave this place. I have left only once in 20 years to go to Giuliano, Azzano, to beat the corpse of Mussolini with my own hands.”

Persuasive, intellectually stimulating, and an astounding achievement on a $10M(?!?!) budget. From a fantastic opening sequence with its killer Blumberg score blaring, through the murky ending, The Brutalist is the kind of Big Swing I can’t help but root for. Brody is outrageously good, as are Jones and Pearce. Brody’s always been interesting to watch even if his career didn’t pan out as he/we probably expected, but I don’t think he’s ever been better than this. And give Pearce a damn Oscar already. 

Corbet and Crawley shot a beautiful god damn picture. The wide, overhead shot of the steam engine is going to stick around in my brain. The entire sequence of László and company walking through the dusty marble quarry is why you go to the movies. 

Thematically it’s a little heavy-handed and it feels a bit loose around the edges in places in Part II, but hats off to everyone involved.