Alan Wasserstein

The art of film making is clearly on display perhaps its cinematic excellence and virtuoso acting performances interfere with the messages or themes it tries to examine. The cracks in the American dream, the difficulties of assimilation, the acceptance of the other, drug addiction, sexual tension, religious secular loyalty and the permanent effects of being in perpetual limbo between life and death while in the concentration camps. Simply too much, sometimes less is more. The attempt to tie and separate themes makes this beautifully crafted film fail to clearly focus completely enough, on any. Instead the complexity is what captures you while it confuses. I was far more involved with the film’s overall creativity than any cement holding the story together. It could have been a five, if one or two characters or concepts were simplified or left out. Great film making should probe, inform, be thought provoking but need not become work, in trying to decide what it is trying to convey. Anyone who loves seeing the art of filmmaking “The Brutalist” is a must see.