The epic period-drama follows architect László Tóth as he emigrates to the United States with wife Erzsébet (Jones) in search of the American Dream, with their lives changing after meeting a wealthy client (Guy Pearce).
Despite receiving critical acclaim, the film has come in for criticism in recent days after editor Dávid Jancsó revealed in an interview with Red Shark News that AI had been used to tweak Brody’s and Jones’s Hungarian accents.
Universal
The news has been met with a largely negative response online, with fans taking to social media to express their thoughts, with one writing on X/Twitter: "the brutalist used ai to fix actors accents and for the architecture design… when it’s a movie about an architect."
"The Brutalist AI shit makes me so sad because how many times will this happen in the future where I see some beautifully crafted movie and find out it hid AI in parts just to cheap out without soul. It’s going to keep being more subtle each time and I f**king hate that," wrote a second user.
"Everyone has access to the same AI tools The Brutalist used, yet we’re not seeing any other new American epics at that level of craft and vision. Why not? From what's been confirmed, this outrage feels like debating autofocus vs. manual – it’s still about who’s behind the lens," wrote a third user, who offered a contrasting view.
"My take on The Brutalist AI thing is it’s a slippery slope to award Adrian Brody knowing his accent was edited with AI. IMO altering a performance with AI like that should automatically disqualify someone from these awards shows," wrote a fourth user.
Universal
Director Brady Corbet offered a response to the backlash, telling The Hollywood Reporter: "Adrien and Felicity’s performances are completely their own. They worked for months with dialect coach Tanera Marshall to perfect their accents.
"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.
"This was a manual process, done by our sound team and Respeecher in post-production. The aim was to preserve the authenticity of Adrien and Felicity’s performances in another language, not to replace or alter them and done with the utmost respect for the craft.”
