Adrien Brody could win his second Oscar for the film “The Brutalist.”

NEW YORK – Adrien Brody is back with the best performance of his career.

Twenty-two years after his Oscar-winning role in The Pianist, the 51-year-old actor could well receive a second gold statue for his outstanding work in The Brutalist, which screened Saturday at the New York Film Festival. The haunting historical epic runs 3½ hours (with a 15-minute intermission) and is about a Hungarian-Jewish architect named László Tóth (Brody) who flees to America after World War II and ends up in rural Pennsylvania. He struggles to find a job worthy of his unique talent until he meets a wealthy tycoon (Guy Pearce) who hires him to design and build a lavish community center.

The film is a stunning excavation of America’s dark heart, showing how people embrace the creativity and culture of immigrants but rarely love them in return. Speaking to reporters after an early morning screening, Brody spoke of his “personal connection” to the material: His mother, photographer Sylvia Plachy, is also a Hungarian immigrant.

Join our Watch Party!Sign in to get USA TODAY’s movie and TV recommendations delivered straight to your inbox.

Alessandro Nivola, left, and Adrien Brody in the picture "The brutalist."

“My grandparents’ journey was not unlike this one,” Brody explained. As a girl, Plachy and her family fled Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution and took refuge in Austria before moving to New York in 1958. Like László, her parents in Hungary had “wonderful jobs and a beautiful home” but were just “getting started.” fresh and essentially impoverished” when they arrived in the United States

Do you need a break? Play the USA TODAY daily crossword puzzle.

“It’s a sacrifice I never took for granted,” Brody said. “To have the honor of embodying this journey that reflects something personal not just for my ancestors but for so many people, and the complexities of coming to America as an immigrant — all of those things are so meaningful. “I just feel very happy to be here.”

“Brutalist” is directed by Brady Corbet (“Vox Lux”) and co-written by Mona Fastvold (“The World to Come”), who modeled herself on a number of real-life architects including Marcel Breuer, Louis Kahn and Paul Randolph when she created the character of László created. Corbet was not interested in making a biography about a single person.

“It’s a way to access the past without having to honor someone’s right to live,” said the filmmaker. “There’s a way to commemorate the era where you’re less of a slave to those details. And I also think it just spins the audience’s head so they’re not like, “That’s how it really went down?”

Although the story is massive in scope – spanning multiple decades and continents – the ambitious film was made for a shockingly cheap $10 million. During the question-and-answer session after the screening, Corbet discussed how he balanced “minimalism and maximalism” through Daniel Blumberg’s captivating score and Judy Becker’s sublime but austere sets. Brody and Felicity Jones, who plays László’s wife, also shared how they mastered Hungarian accents and dialogue.

Recent Posts