The Brutalist has once again invited a question that’s been irking me for some time now. How easy is it to mistake competence for brilliance?

What I mean to say is that breathtaking cinematography, engrossing performances, and a captivating score are hardly containing whatever noxious substance lurks beneath the surface of this film. It was easy to be swept up in some truly astounding visual feats - a train exploding in the distance, the Statue of Liberty turning on its head, that incredible heroin-induced sex scene. It was also easy to fall face-first into some very moving sequences - like Adrian Brody’s László breaking down in sobs as his equally traumatized wife, Erzsébet, clinging to his dick, pleads with him to stay with her.

But three hours into The Brutalist, as we crawl towards a disastrously clumsy epilogue, the only question we are left with is: why?

Brady Corbet has taken up the mantle of representing the true immigrant experience, but his approach is so singular, so relentlessly bleak, that the film fails to speak much truth at all. Rather, it serves as some particularly persuasive propaganda.

Rape, when used as a device, can very quickly overtake a film. When Guy Pearce’s character Harrison sodomizes a stupored László in an Italian alleyway, the act comes as so literal and brutal a metaphor as to obliterate any event that occurs before or after it. It is also the act, along with yet another terrible, singular tragedy in which Erzsébet overdoses on heroin, which catalyzes the one message that the film seems to land on: the only solution now is to leave. But where to? The answer is sitting rather feebly before us.

What does Corbet want us to take away? What exactly does "it’s not the journey, it’s the destination" mean? And why was this made?

Three stars for competence, which has always been enough for the Oscars.