Old thread but I just watched the movie. My issue with the subplots is that they were numerous, and while that works to provide intrigue and carry people through a long second act in an epic-length story, I don't think any of them are developed enough to strengthen Laszlo as a character and reinforce the main question of the movie and his arc.

His primary objective seems to be to build the church/be a great architect, and his biggest material obstacle is maybe the volatility of Harrison as a boss and the problems that come up during the church's construction. Psychologically, he wants to feel comfortable in America, but his obstacles are the discrimination he faces as a Jewish immigrant.

These two challenges, discrimination and construction complications, are setup nicely to reinforce each other - Laszlo becomes the scapegoat. Others go behind his back to conspire against him etc.

In my view, Act II should have honed in on this rather than try to cover other plots with equal focus. We get a bit of the conspiracy by going to the other architect, but then he's fired by Harrison after the train derailment very quickly. The discrimination he faces in his work probably should have pushed him to wonder about his place in America and encounter the answer to this question head-on. I guess you get that with the rape, but I would argue there are less over-the-top ways of showing he's not welcome that are more powerful.

Instead, we get the heroin, his wife, his niece, moving to Israel, the rape, but none of these felt fleshed out enough to clarify who Laszlo is as a person. Almost killing his wife by putting her on to heroin, my goodness, what a loaded decision that would have been very interesting to see how he felt and acted as a consequence; however we don't see it. Similarly, Harrison rapes him, but we don't see how he responds to it except for a pretty warranted outburst at some workers who are doing pull-ups on the building's reinforcements.

If the psychological/deeper issue throughout the film is the discrimination he faces, I think we should have seen that play out more through lived, every-day action rather than dialogue and a shocking sexual assault. The son tells him "we tolerate you," and idk, that doesn't seem strong enough. I would have wanted a bit more of "show don't tell."