12/04/2023 - Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn and Raffey Cassidy have also joined the much-anticipated US-European co-production, which has now begun shooting in Budapest

Actors Adrien Brody (© Georges Biard) and Felicity Jones (© Dick Thomas Johnson)

The Chinatown line about politicians and “ugly buildings” all getting respectable if they last long enough surely anticipated the 2010s revival of interest in brutalist architecture, noted for its stark structural elements and use of exposed concrete. Ever-modish, Brady Corbet has referenced the movement for the title of his sweeping historical study The Brutalist, which has finally entered production on location in Budapest following pandemic- and development-related delays.

Adrien Brody will play “visionary” Hungarian architect László Toth, who, along with his wife, Erzsébet (Felicity Jones), is facing hardship and poverty as the couple attempt to establish themselves as immigrants in post-war America. But soon, Lászlo is sponsored by a “seemingly charming” industrialist (Guy Pearce) to design a “grand modernist monument” that will be a pearl of the new urban skyline – a project that will push him and his marital bond to their limits.

Joe Alwyn, not far away from the celebrity news pages in recent days, has also joined the cast, alongside Raffey Cassidy, Alessandro Nivola, Issach De Bankolé and Stacy Martin. Corbet wrote the screenplay, which spans a 30-year timeline, with his partner, filmmaker Mona Fastvold (The World to Come). Lol Crawley, who shot Corbet’s previous Venice competition entry Vox Lux, is back as cinematographer, whilst experimental musician Daniel Blumberg is on score duty after earning rave reviews for his work on The World to Come, a Venice premiere at the 2020 pandemic-era edition.

The film is an intricate co-production between several partners, headed by producers Trevor Matthews and Nick Gordon, of Brookstreet UK, and from the USA, Andrew Morrison of Yellow Bear, Andrew Lauren of Andrew Lauren Productions and DJ Gugenheim. Co-producing partners are the UK’s Intake Films and Hungary’s Proton Cinema, whilst further financing comes from Lip Sync Productions, Richmond Pictures, Meyohas Studio, Carte Blanche and the French production cashflow outfit Cofiloisirs.

Corbet’s debut, The Childhood of a Leader [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], a White Ribbon [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michael Haneke
film profile]-like fable about incipient fascism, won the Luigi De Laurentiis Debut Film Award at Venice in 2015, and signalled a full turn away from his US teen acting career, which was itself succeeded by various cameo roles in European auteur films, such as Force Majeure [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Ruben Östlund
film profile] and Eden [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Charles Gillibert
interview: Mia Hansen-Løve
film profile].