THE STORY – A quartet of billionaire friends get together against a rolling international crisis.
THE CAST – Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith & Ramy Youssef
THE TEAM – Jesse Armstrong (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 109 Minutes
“You are not serious people.” A revelatory line uttered by Logan Roy (Brian Cox) in the final season of “Succession” reverberates in the new work of the show’s creator, Jesse Armstrong. The seven-time Emmy winner and Oscar-nominated writer/director knows how to mirror serious subject matter through dark humor. As demonstrated in his behemoth HBO hit “Succession,” a biting saga of American wealth and dysfunction, Armstrong captured the zeitgeist through the prism of satire. In a heightened depiction of the hyper-privileged, “Succession” drew parallels to the real world. The balance between absurdity and glimmers of sympathy in such morally corrupt characters made the show an irresistible watch. A feature-length doom scroll from the perspective of out-of-touch, not-so-sympathetic billionaires is a little harder to digest.
Armstrong’s feature film debut, “Mountainhead,” paints a similarly ironic and cynical scrutiny of the mega-rich that audiences can expect from the “Succession” team, which includes executive producers Mark Mylod, Will Tracy, and Lucy Prebble. This time, characters make power moves in custom kitchens and saunas instead of boardrooms and offices. In place of the Roy family dynasty, “Mountainhead” focuses on a group of tech-bro billionaire friends to steer the dramatic tension. The subject of artificial intelligence is rampant, especially in how social media platforms have perpetuated the spread of misinformation and the death of truth. The mere thought of spending time with billionaires in a bunker as they compare net worths and chuckle amongst themselves as they scroll through disturbing news feeds sounds excruciating. And yet, penned by Armstrong, the film uses enough sharp wit to make this scenario at least digestible while also giving these characters the ridicule they richly deserve. The satire of “Mountainhead” doesn’t lead to a groundbreaking conversation, nor does it have compelling characterizations. However, it creates enough ripple effects to draw attention to the topical subject.
The film begins with Randall (Steve Carell), Venis (Cory Michael Smith), and Jeff (Ramy Youssef) on their separate ways to visit mutual friend Souper/Hugo Van Yalk (Jason Schwartzman), whose mountainous mansion could pass for the secret lair of a Bond villain. The wintry elements of “Mountainhead” are no match for the coldness of these characters, who have decided to gather for “Brewster” weekend amidst international turmoil. Venis (Michael Smith) wants the world to become “post-human” with brains uploaded onto a digital grid. His social media app, Traam, has completely obliterated the line between truth and fiction. Traam’s mishandling of information includes a disturbing deepfake generated on the platform, leading to an alarming global meltdown that eerily does not faze the guy.
Meanwhile, Jeff (Youssef) claims to be sitting on the cure for “info cancer” and wants Venis to regulate the use of artificial intelligence. Souper (Schwartzman), nicknamed from soup kitchens for being the “poorest” billionaire of the friend group, tries to sell Jeff on a lifestyle/meditation app called Slowzo. Randall (Carell), assuming the “leader” role of the group and quietly facing his fear of mortality, wants to be the first brain upload on Venis’s digital grid. All this absurdity gives the actors enough material to chew on and make their mark. Each of them conveys multitudes of narcissism with sharp, satirical line deliveries. They deftly balance the silliness of their characters’ sense of superiority with the underlying scariness of their influence in the world. Souper, for instance, uses his influence to arrange a meeting for himself to become the next president of Argentina.
While the characters can turn off societal rules like flicking a switch in their insulated bubble, they cannot escape their greed and inflated egos, causing palpable tension in the friend group. Given the behaviors we learn about them along the way, the desperate lengths each will go to belittle one another’s status for personal gain come as no surprise. The surprises of “Mountainhead,” for better or worse, can be found in Armstrong’s screenplay. He lays the groundwork for a sharp narrative turn that demonstrates a rollercoaster in tone, from sarcastic to disturbing and back again. However, not enough basis is given to the characters themselves.
Watching the story unfold is like staring into a void where heart and humanity ought to be. It’s essentially doom-scrolling from the perspective of billionaires, and the film presents their moral repugnance on a surface level. Justification is not needed to explain why these characters are awful; however, they lack dimension simply from a storytelling standpoint, making it difficult to find them compelling enough to eagerly follow along (a balance at which “Succession” excelled). Thankfully, Armstrong ensures no shortage of ridicule to go around, and it’s incredibly easy to relish in the downfall of this friend group.
Most of the intrigue comes from Armstrong’s signature paranoia-driven direction, from the handheld camerawork to the chaotic zooming and close-ups. He crafts a tense, pressure-cooker environment for the actors to inhabit. The societal rules do not apply within these walls, and that visual depiction of complete dissociation from the real world leaves room for unpredictable tension. Armstrong re-teams with composer Nicholas Britell, who created one of the most iconic scores in television history with “Succession,” giving him another opportunity to soar here. The composer’s catchy blend of classical and hip-hop beats perfectly mirrors the film’s heavy topics and duality in tone.
One of the underlying questions “Mountainhead” poses is, how much can you get away with when you’re rich? When the characters cross a line (and they know they have), they move on as though scrolling past a feed. Their attitudes emphasize the bleak prism Armstrong is looking through: disconnection from reality. Whether it’s how the characters view themselves as mighty solutions to the world’s problems or how AI-generated content on a social media platform compromises the integrity of real journalism, the film effectively conveys the very nature of how the hollow Musks of this world operate to poison society. “Mountainhead” arrives at a time when reality has certainly caught up with Armstrong’s sharp eye, making the film a depressingly perceptive mirror of the current state of the world.
