The Brutalist (2024)

What? A film with an Intermission? Yay! Mind you, it needs it - at three and a half hours! Fear ye not though, as it's so well done that the time flies. Well, maybe flies is a stretch - but it really didn't feel that length.

It's superbly acted by the cast, Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones are the stand-outs, but also Guy Pearce, Joe Alwyn and Raffey Cassidy do fine jobs.

I'm sure you know what it's about, but briefly it's the (not true) story of an architect fleeing the abuses of WWII Europe in 1947, heading for the USA (land of opportunity) where he bumps into a wealthy capitalist chappie who heads up a family who are bored with their wealth so look for stuff to do. Aha! We'll use this architect to build a community centre in the memory of grandma. So they do.

As the film proceeds we find out more about his family that was left behind, learn more about The American Dream, get embroiled in all sorts of drama as things go well, then not so well and deep-dive on various characters in the tale. It's layered with all sorts of other stuff via clever story-writing and directing (Brady Corbet) and ends up a moving spectacle which will keep you watching. Well, it did me, anyway!

At the cinema now or streaming (though it's still quite expensive there, so it's point-using time again unless you want to wait 'til it's cheaper etc.) I was very impressed.