What role did Felicity Jones play in the Oscar-winning movie The Brutalist? Character explored  

The Brutalist is one of the most well-received and celebrated films of 2024. The period drama is helmed by Brady Corbet, and it received three Academy Awards for Best Original Score, Best Cinematography, and Best Actor for Adrien Brody.

Felicity Jones plays the role of Erzsébet Tóth, whose husband is László Tóth (played by Brody). This role earned the English actress an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

The film was released on December 20, 2024, by A24 and grossed over $40 million against a $10 million budget. Here is the official synopsis as per Letterboxd:

Escaping post-war Europe, visionary architect László Toth arrives in America to rebuild his life, his work, and his marriage to his wife Erzsébet after being forced apart during wartime by shifting borders and regimes. On his own in a strange new country, László settles in Pennsylvania, where the wealthy and prominent industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren recognizes his talent for building. But power and legacy come at a heavy cost.

---

Exploring Felicity Jones' role in The Brutalist

The Brutalist features Felicity Jones playing the role of Erzsébet Tóth. She is married to László Tóth and works as a journalist. She managed to survive the Holocaust during the Second World War at the concentration camp of Dachau.

At the concentration camp, she is separated from her husband, who is an architect. The character has a limited screen time and does not appear in the first half of The Brutalist. She is mentioned in the letters throughout and by other characters talking about her.

Through her absence, we find out how much Erzsébet misses him, yet he rarely talks about her. The character remains a mystery throughout the film as very limited information about her is shared. She eventually makes an appearance in the second half of the film. The character reaches America and reunites with her husband after nearly eight years. Eventually, we realize her husband did not miss her. On the contrary, he was obsessed with the structure he had helped in designing.

---

Felicity Jones on her character in The Brutalist

Felicity Jones has spoken about her character in the film The Brutalist. She said,

"What I liked about the script that there's this immense wait for these characters to be united. It's been eight years that they haven't seen each other. The romance is amped up in the reunion of these two people."

She further added,

"What's wonderful is that it's quite complex, quite hard for them to, in those very intimate scenes, to rediscover each other. There's a certain amount of awkwardness. Even when László finds Erzsébet in the bath, he's a bit flummoxed even though she is his wife. They just haven't had this level of closeness. So in that scene, you see them working out their intimacy. Also, Erzsébet has such belief, such faith that this relationship has become her God in some way. You see her determination to make that relationship work, even though it's to her detriment.”

The film is about a Hungarian-Jewish man who manages to survive the Holocaust and reaches America right after World War II. He then goes on to achieve the American dream. Brady Corbet (also the director) wrote the script with Mona Fastvold.

---

Stay tuned to Soap Central for more such stories.