Following up “Succession” is a frightening feat — a lot in order that it’s greatest to consider the HBO movie “Mountainhead” as extra of a palate-cleanser than a subsequent act. Written and directed by “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong, “Mountainhead” might share a milieu (the ultra-rich) and a comic book rhythm (quick, verbose, profane) with the lavishly acclaimed drama, but it surely’s a lot much less bold by design. Armstrong wrote the script in a matter of weeks, and many of the motion is confined, playlike, to the namesake alpine retreat. As if to ship a message to the viewers, “Mountainhead” even takes that least prestigious of varieties: the made-for-TV film, airing on the final day of this yr’s Emmy eligibility window — like a pupil handing of their homework proper on the deadline.
If one receives that message and units expectations accordingly, then “Mountainhead” has a lot to supply. Sure, its 109 minutes could also be a approach for Armstrong to exorcise the final traces of “Succession” from his system. (“Succession” mainstays Mark Mylod, Will Tracy, Lucy Prebble and others are all credited as govt producers.) However “Mountainhead” has its personal focus: the damaging impression of expertise and the man-children who management it, as if the Roys of “Succession” had been changed by a quartet of Lukas Matssons. Alexander Skarsgård’s self-made entrepreneur was largely utilized in distinction to the grownup Roy kids’s inherited, unearned wealth; in “Mountainhead,” the work itself takes heart stage, even when its penalties are out of sight and out of thoughts for its characters.
“Mountainhead” posits the existence of a sort of billionaire fraternity referred to as the Brewsters, who’ve descended upon Utah for his or her semi-regular poker night time. On the eve of this bro hold, Venis (Cory Michael Smith, of “Saturday Evening” and “Might December”), the Zuckerberg-like CEO of social media firm Traam, has launched a brand new, deepfake-enabling characteristic that’s lit a world bonfire of misinformation. Venis jokes that he ought to reply by posting “fuuck,” with two U’s; his hangers-on sycophantically chortle, at the same time as the brand new characteristic stokes sectarian violence by eroding customers’ capacity to inform true from false.
Jeff (Ramy Youssef) is the inventor of an AI expertise that represents “the remedy for info-cancer” to Traam’s “4chan on fuckin’ acid.” (The small print listed below are hazy at greatest; it’s the symbolism that’s necessary.) However although Jeff is the Brewster most burdened with a conscience, he’s nonetheless much less involved with Venis’ moral overreach than his shading Jeff for a scarcity of “founder power” on a high-profile podcast. Nearer to dwelling, Jeff’s billions can’t purchase the constancy of his girlfriend Hester (Hadley Robinson), who’s taken off for an orgy-adjacent gathering in Mexico. “Simply because folks have intercourse at a celebration doesn’t imply it’s a intercourse social gathering,” she not-really-reassures him. Rounding out the foursome are financier Randall (Steve Carell), who’s in denial about his terminal most cancers prognosis, and host Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), who’s derisively often known as Souper, as in soup kitchen — as a result of his comparatively paltry nine-figure fortune makes him “the poorest billionaire within the recreation.”
You’ll have already picked up on some echoes within the prior paragraphs of synopsis. Souper’s self-pity mimics Tom Wambsgans’ evaluation of a $5 million fortune as “the poorest wealthy individual in America” and “the world’s tallest dwarf”; Jeff’s jealousy of Hester remembers Connor Roy’s (profitable) makes an attempt to purchase the loyalty of his paid-escort-turned-wife Willa. Comparisons to “Succession” could also be inevitable only a couple years after its finale, however “Mountainhead” additionally earns them.
However “Mountainhead” seems to be outward in addition to again. I’ll confess to screening the film not lengthy after ending “Careless Individuals,” former Fb govt Sarah Wynn-Williams’s tell-all in regards to the inside workings of that firm within the 2010s. Venis’ complete indifference towards the chaos he’s prompted, and his repudiation of duty for it, is totally according to how Mark Zuckerberg, Sheryl Sandberg and their colleagues responded to potential come-to-Jesus moments just like the 2016 election or the Rohingya genocide in Myanmar. Likewise, Randall’s obsession with going “post-human” to reside out eternity in our on-line world comes from the identical denial of dying that leads figures like Peter Thiel and Bryan Johnson to hunt excessive, typically ghoulish technique of extending their life. Cash should purchase a lot; why not immortality?
In different phrases, I’m compelled by Armstrong’s evaluation of plutocrats’ damaged psychology, particularly when their riches come from “disruption” and “innovation.” I’m much less compelled by the concept these persons are able to intimate friendship — not to mention that they’d be pals with one another. It’s amusing to observe these males have interaction in homosocial rituals like scrawling their web worths on their naked chests; there’s even a ceremony for when one Brewster surpasses the opposite in the one metric that appears to matter to them. For a similar causes, it’s additionally unconvincing after they profess to care about each other. Armstrong wanted a purpose to get these folks in the identical room, however honest affection isn’t a believable one.
As a movie moderately than a sequence, “Mountainhead” doesn’t have the time to domesticate the psychological nuance or interpersonal dynamics that made the Roys so indelible. (This partly explains the rather more established forged, who are available in with gravitas moderately than slowly construct their roles right into a calling card.) As a substitute, “Mountainhead” goes all-in on farce, steering Venis’ callousness, Jeff’s objections, Hugo’s insecurity and Randall’s desperation to their inevitable combustion level. Of the 4, Randall comes closest to some sort of pathos along with his frantic denial of the inevitable, however when he offhandedly labels Earth a “strong starter planet,” it’s the Muskian grandiosity that bears the comedian load.
Armstrong appears to intuit the inherent strengths (pace, focus) and weaknesses (emotion, depth) of his present medium. The ambition of “Mountainhead” is far decrease than diagnosing the underlying dysfunction of the privileged few who run the world, settling for placing their dysfunction on caustically hilarious show. However with biting references to ethical philosophy, “Ayn Bland” and, in an particularly bleak second, Jamal Khashoggi, “Mountainhead” has the sharpness and erudition to hit its nearer goal.
“Mountainhead” is at the moment streaming on Max and can air on HBO on Might thirty first at 8 p.m. ET.
