“The Brutalist” is an impossible film to write about. It is steeped with countless powerful themes and is so vast in scale that it’s nearly impossible for me to formulate an organic and original analysis of it. “The Brutalist” is a classic American odyssey from actor-turned-director Brady Corbet. This gargantuan VistaVision spectacle is an absolute triumph of American storytelling, akin to the Orson Wells and King Vidor pictures of Hollywood’s “golden age,” and its thematic depth is even comparable to the “The Godfather” films. “The Brutalist” follows László Tóth (Adrian Brody), a Hungarian brutalist architect who immigrates to Pennsylvania in order to achieve the “American dream.” The film’s first act is an excellent visualization of this dream, and the second act is a painful deconstruction and dissection of it.

Corbet nearly masters the American Dream story and enraptures the viewer in this beautiful and complex tale. Brody is flawless in the starring role, and his surrounding cast, specifically Felicity Jones and Guy Pearce, are equally impressive. Corbet’s script is as outstanding as the performances that bring it to life, and cinematographer David Jansco provides interesting, beautiful, and semi-experimental visuals. An endless array of shaky-cam moving shots, broad, imposing shots, and tight personal portraits provide a magnificently unique viewing experience.

“The Brutalist” is so complex that there are countless messages a viewer could get out of it, but that’s part of the film’s beauty. The movie has countless metaphors for its themes; anti-semitism, alienation, the struggle for power, immigration, sex, artistry and assimilation. Although at times blunt, these metaphors expertly deliver the film’s ideas in an accessible way. In a January 14 interview with Script, Corbet claimed that the whole film was about reclamation. “Reclaiming one’s physical body and one’s career after everything has fallen apart,” the director said. This overall theme is deeply entrenched in every scene in the film, and the entire story is formatted around this.

One of the most commonly discussed elements of this film is the formatting. The film is formatted as a typical story, with a prologue, two acts, an intermission and an epilogue. The intermission is a genius choice from Corbet, as it gives the audience a moment to breathe in the middle of this monster film. The two acts are also completely tonally different, and the intermission feels essential to the storytelling, not just due to the length.

A film of this size is nearly impossible to be without its issues, and “The Brutalist” isn’t an exception, although it gets pretty close. The epilogue and prologue have some questionable artistic decisions regarding music, cinematography and stylization. This semi-purposely sets them apart from the rest of the film. These decisions worked for some viewers but generally came off as the film’s largest misstep.

“The Brutalist” is not a film to be taken lightly. The film is so deeply entrenched in the history of cinema and of mankind and should be watched with full focus and picked apart for hours afterward.