Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist was one of 2024’s most acclaimed films, though there’s certainly one aspect of it which left many viewers less than fulfilled – the fate of elite industrialist Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce).
After Harrison is outed as a rapist, he quite literally vanishes from the movie never to be seen again, though the distinct implication is that Harrison has killed himself within the half-completed walls of the Van Buren Institute.
The rest of the film makes no mention of Harrison or what became of him – a flourish which naturally infuriated many people given the prominence of his character and the horrors he inflicted upon protagonist László Tóth (Adrien Brody).
Even though there’s no explicit confirmation that Harrison dies, that does appear to be the suggestion and the one which most appear to have run with, even if the lack of total clarity is still quite maddening.
