The Brutalist: 'haunting' historical epic is Oscar frontrunner

"Seven years in the making, and three-and-a-half hours in the watching (including a 15-minute intermission)", "The Brutalist" is "the film to beat" come Oscar night, said Kevin Maher in The Times. Nominated in ten categories, this "majestic historical epic" tells the story of a fictional Hungarian-Jewish architect called László Tóth (Adrien Brody), who flees war-ravaged Europe in 1947 to chase the American dream. Following his arrival at Ellis Island, he struggles to find his feet; but eventually his skills are noted by an imperious industrialist (Guy Pearce), who commissions him to design a mammoth cultural centre dedicated to his late mother.

Director and co-writer Brady Corbet "stages some staggering set pieces", and the central performances – by Brody, Pearce and Felicity Jones, as Tóth's wife – are "savagely good". This is not a "soft" film, nor a "reassuring" one, but it feels like "something beautiful, haunting and strange from the long-forgotten past".

"An austere, novelistic, self-consciously important film", "The Brutalist" unfurls "in a measured sprawl", yet "exerts an iron grip", said Jamie Graham in Empire. It's shot in VistaVision, a near-extinct format from the era in which it is set, and it mulls on "weighty themes" such as Jewish identity and immigration – but "homework it ain't. Just as Dostoevsky's doorstop novels bristle with brio, Corbet's myth-making saga propels as it soars." The fact "that such an epic was constructed for under $10m beggars belief".

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"This is a film of ambition and swagger, and Brody's performance, suffused with pain and longing, is terrific," said Deborah Ross in The Spectator. "However, there are some odd decisions." A mute niece suddenly stops being mute for some reason; and a Black character (Isaach de Bankolé) seems to be there only "to make Tóth look morally decent". It does also "frequently feel familiar. What movie about the American dream isn't an inversion of the American dream?"

"The Brutalist" has been described as "immense", "monumental" and "dizzying", said Brian Viner in the Daily Mail, and it did make me feel "euphoric" – but only when the interval was announced. Sure, it's an impressive film, but "for me it too often loses its narrative grip", as it veers off on "self-indulgent" tangents.

Corbet clearly "made this movie because he wants it to mean something big", said Owen Gleiberman in Variety. "Whether it does may be in the eye of the beholder. Mostly, 'The Brutalist' lets you feel that you're seeing a man's life pass before your eyes. That may be meaning enough."