In Defense of “Difficult” Movies

Somebody on Twitter — I’m not calling it X, I refuse — posted that they watched The Brutalist at 2x speed because they didn’t have time for a 3.5 hour movie.

And I. I don’t know. Something broke inside me.

This isn’t a subtweet. This is a cultural observation. We’ve lost the ability to sit with things. To let art take the time it needs. Everything has to be content now. Everything has to be consumable. Efficient. If you can’t get through it on a treadmill while half-watching, it’s “too slow.”

The Brutalist is 3 hours and 35 minutes because that’s how long the story needs to tell itself. It’s an epic spanning decades. The pacing IS the point. The long takes. The silence between words. The way Corbet lets scenes breathe. You experience time alongside the characters. If you watch it at 2x speed you’re not watching The Brutalist. You’re watching something else wearing its costume.

This extends beyond runtime. “Slow” movies. Movies where “nothing happens.” Movies that require you to meet them halfway instead of spoon-feeding you.

2001: A Space Odyssey. Stalker. Barry Lyndon. Paris, Texas. Jeanne Dielman. These are masterpieces and they’re all “boring” by contemporary standards. They don’t have quips every thirty seconds. They don’t have action beats timed to keep your attention. They ask you to slow down. To be present. To watch.

I’m not saying every movie needs to be three hours of a woman peeling potatoes. I like fun movies. I like Marvel movies sometimes. Entertainment is valid. But we’ve created a culture where ONLY entertainment is valid. Where any film that asks for effort is dismissed as pretentious or self-indulgent.

“Pretentious” has become a meaningless word. It used to mean something — art that claims depth it doesn’t have. Now it just means “made me feel stupid.” If you don’t immediately understand something it must be the art’s fault, not yours. The possibility that YOU might need to rise to meet the work is inconceivable.

I sound like an old man. I am an old man. I’m 42 and I teach nobody anymore but I used to teach high schoolers and I watched attention spans shrink in real time. The kids aren’t broken — they’re adapted to an environment that rewards skimming and punishes depth.

So here’s my plea. Every once in a while, watch something difficult. Something slow. Something that doesn’t immediately reward you. Watch it at 1x speed. Put your phone in another room. Give the movie three hours of your life without asking what you’ll get in return.

You might hate it. That’s fine. But you might also discover that slowing down feels good. That letting art set its own pace opens something in your brain that efficiency closes.

The Brutalist isn’t just a story about an architect. It’s about what we build when we take our time. When we reject shortcuts. When we insist on doing things right even when it’s harder.

Watch it at 1x.

Trust me.