EDIFICE COMPLEX

László Tóth, played by Adrien Brody in The Brutalist, arrives on a ship in darkness to Ellis Island in 1947, trapped below decks only to emerge into a blue-sky view of the Statue of Liberty, which is—from his perspective—upside down.

- SCOTT GARCEAU

László Tóth, played by Adrien Brody in The Brutalist, arrives on a ship in darkness to Ellis Island in 1947, trapped below decks only to emerge into a blue-sky view of the Statue of Liberty, which is—from his perspective—upside down. That symbolism recurs near the end of Brady Corbet's three-and-a-half-hour epic with a view of an upside-down cross, its outline reflected in a nearly completed church project initiated by industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren Jr. (a crafty Guy Pearce), a man who made his money during the war and now wants to create a monument to his own benevolence.

Two pillars of America, served up through a cock-eyed lens.

The Brutalist is a story of America, and like most films nominated for a Best Picture Oscar this year, it's about immigrants. (Others addressing the "outsider" condition include Wicked, Emilia Perez, Anora, Dune: Part Two, A Complete Unknown and Conclave.) You could say immigration is on people's minds these days.

But