THE BRUTALIST
Fresh off its Venice bow, Brady Corbet’s three and a half hour epic (with intermission!) The Brutalist is making its North American debut at the Toronto International Film Festival where it’s guaranteed to cement its status as a major Oscar contender, contingent on whether or not a US distributor ponies up the cash. This is a sweeping, ambitious, and intoxicating film with a thumping score and beautiful undertones about the plight of the American dream. It may leave viewers frustrated, but so few cinematic excursions these days challenge and show the type of patience and empathy a movie like The Brutalist does.
On that note, Corbet is starting to assert himself as the next modern day Stanley Kubrick or even Orson Welles, wherein anything the filmmaker decides to make will become an event. His latest has Adrian Brody playing Jewish Hungarian immigrant Laszlo Toth, a Bauhaus architect who made the pilgrimage to the US after World War II and is looking for a fresh start while awaiting his wife Erszebet (Felicity Jones) to join him.
Along the lengthy journey, Toth crosses path with an old cousin (Alessandro Nivola) though most notably, he catches the attention of wealthy tycoon Harrison van Buren (Guy Pearce in a career best performance) who becomes enamored with Toth after he designs and builds him a lavish, modern day library and asks he embark on a major architectural challenge.
Formatted in VistaVision and shot on 70mm by Lol Crawly, The Brutalist is propelled by Daniel Blumberg’s magnetic score and Corbet’s assured, steady hand. This is a movie that won’t easily be digested, but will certainly be admired.
Grade: B+
THE BRUTALIST played at the Toronto International Film Festival and will be released by A24 in the future.
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THE LAST SHOWGIRL
Billed as Pamela Anderson’s comeback vehicle, Gia Coppola’s The Last Showgirl, which world premiered at the festival, unfortunately doesn’t have the dramatic or emotional weight to elevate it beyond the limitations of its uneven lead performance. It’s easy to root for Anderson considering the hand she’s been dealt throughout her career, but the conventional script by Kate Gersten fails to give the actress A Star is Born caliber character. Nor is it for her what “Red Rocket” did for Simon Rex two years ago.
Anderson plays Shelley, an aging dancer who has been the headliner of a Vegas strip burlesque show for 25+ years that’s now closing down. Staring down the barrel of what her future is going to look like, Shelly is facing an existential threat on how she’s going to survive in an industry that’s brutal to women above the age of 40.
It’s clear Coppola wants this to be a pro-feminist, pro-body positivity venture with Shelley saying things like “I’m 57 and I’m beautiful.” But Anderson shows no depth to the character and you constantly feel a distance with not just her, but everyone else on screen. Dave Bautista tries flexing his dramatic chops playing Eddie, a bouncer with affection for Shelley, though he’s not given much to do other than be disposable fodder.
Same for Jamie Lee Curtis playing Annette, a long-time friend and dancer with Shelley who, at one point, has an extended dance sequence set to Pat Benatar’s Shadows of the Night on a Las Vegas casino floor. Curtis probably does the most with so little, and though Anderson is certainly pouring every fiber of her being into this performance, The Last Showgirl isn’t the complementary display of her talents I had hoped it would be.
Grade: D+
THE LAST SHOWGIRL world premiere at the Toronto Film Festival and is currently seeking distribution.
THE LIFE OF CHUCK
Mike Flanagan and Stephen King continue to expand on their relationship with the The House of the Fall of Usher filmmaker adapting The Life of Chuck, into a sprawling three-part saga that, as a whole, struggles to sustain itself, but dissected individually can, at least, be appreciated. The film is broken up into three sections and focuses on Charles “Chuck” Krantz (Tom Hiddelston - who isn’t in the movie as much as you’d think he would be) at different points in his life and how it affects those around him. It features a pretty solid supporting cast including Mark Hamill, Jacob Tremblay, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Karen Gillian, and Matthew Lillard.
The Life of Chuck is certainly not something you’d expect from a filmmaker known for delivering taunt thrills in movies like Hush, and Doctor Sleep, and would probably best be described as The Twilight Zone, by way of Cloud Atlas, complete with a showstopping musical number at the height of Act Two (for reference, the film is told reverse chronologically starting with Act Three).
Some acts are stronger than others and the connective tissue of how Chuck see’s the world is interesting and it’s evident Flanagan is trying to emulate more somber, emotional King works ala The Green Mile and Stand By Me, but a lot of the points, about how being a human is this divine culmination of being connected to every person you’ve ever met, feels a little overstated. Fans of the source material are likely to be enamored with the touching, down-to-earth vibes, while others might be still trying to pick up the pieces.
Grade: C+
THE LIFE OF CHUCK world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and is still seeking distribution.