The Brutalist (2025) - 6/10
This is a film about a Hungarian-Jewish Holocaust survivor who gets separated from his family and travels to New York to make a new life for himself. It touches on romance, on hard-work, on the immigrant struggle and, most importantly, on how the only thing László loves more than his wife is concrete. Adrien Brody plays the part very well; you can see in his eyes how torn he is between human connection and the seductive promise of reinforced cement. When he's not thinking about load-bearing walls, he's either re-living his trauma or doing heroin in an attempt to make it through to bed-time. The cinematography and musical compositons are great and you definitely come out of the film feeling like you've experienced something, but what exactly? I'm not so sure. I definitely felt like I wasn't clever enough to be the films intended audience though, which did feel marginally insulting. It's a mad film but worth a watch.