The Brutalist co-writers Brady Corbet, who also serves as director, and Mona Fastvold have revealed why the film has a 15-minute intermission, confirming its lengthy runtime.
Starring Adrien Brody and Felicity Jones, the film tells the story of architect László Tóth who emigrates to the United States with his wife Erzsébet to chase the American dream. Their lives are changed when they meet a wealthy client, played by Guy Pearce.
Clocking in at 3 hours and 35 minutes long, the Oscar contender boasts a 15-minute interval, which its co-writers have explained.
Related: First trailer for major Oscar contender The Brutalist
"It was always scripted, the intermission," Corbet told IndieWire. "It’s funny, it’s gotten more attention in a way than we expected it to. I personally have a hard time sitting still for three-and-a-half hours, so I needed it. And it was a public-facing decision."
"Yeah, we always knew we wanted to have that break in the middle," Fastvold added. "You know, people sit at home and they watch eight to 16 hours of a limited series with little breaks in between, so if you apply that idea to this film, you’re just binging this movie with a little break in the middle. So, don’t be scared of the intermission."
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The 15-minute intermission, which will include a countdown clock on screen, comes roughly halfway through the film between 'Part 1: The Enigma of Arrival' and 'Part 2: The Hard Core of Beauty'.
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Meanwhile, Corbet recently defended the decision to use AI in the film after its editor Dávid Jancsó revealed that AI was used to improve the lead actor's Hungarian accents.
"Adrien and Felicity's performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents," Corbet told The Hollywood Reporter.
"Innovative Respeecher technology was used in Hungarian language dialogue editing only, specifically to refine certain vowels and letters for accuracy. No English language was changed."
The Brutalist is out now in cinemas.
Reporter, Digital Spy
Harriet is a freelance news writer specialising in TV and movies at Digital Spy.
A horror enthusiast, she joined Digital Spy after working on her own horror website, reviewing films and focusing largely on feminism in the genre.
In her spare time, Harriet paints and produces mixed-media art. She graduated from the University of Kingston with a BA in fine art, where she specialised in painting. She also has an MA in journalism from Birkbeck University.
