On the luxurious Mountainhead resort in Utah, 4 males collect for a enjoyable cling, united by one factor: Their staggering quantities of cash. These are males value a whole lot of hundreds of thousands, if not billions, because of their involvement in tech and different industries (the businesses they personal are fictional, however have real-life parallels that aren’t laborious to trace). Bonded on this approach, Randall (Steve Carell), Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), Venis (Cory Michael Smith), and Jeff (Ramy Youssef) have created a pleasant little fraternity with its personal lexicon, nicknames, and rituals, like a ceremony through which their respective web worths are in contrast after which rewarded with completely different hats. They’re on the literal high of the world.
Whereas issues appear peaceable up at Mountainhead, the skin world isn’t fairly so fortunate: The social media platform owned by Venis has simply launched a brand new characteristic that permits customers to create on the spot deepfakes, and the result’s an enormous unfold of violence internationally, individuals rioting within the streets over each faux atrocities in addition to the actual atrocities that happen in response to the faux ones.
Venis isn’t apprehensive concerning the chaos — Venis, in truth, is thrilled about the place this chaos may lead. And that’s about when the technocrats in Mountainhead begin speaking about how perhaps the world can be a greater place if they only… took it over. They sure find the money for and energy to do it. Why not?
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There’s an excellent cause, one which Armstrong not-so-subtly reveals over the course of the movie: These guys are idiots. Not within the apparent methods, however in that approach that occurs once you’ve been surrounded by sure males for therefore lengthy that you just now not have any self-doubt, and now not can inform the distinction between your dangerous concepts and your good ones. Whenever you’ve been handled as a genius by the skin world so typically that you just really begin to consider it, though your “genius” is rooted in a fortunate break, or buying an organization whose inside workings you don’t fairly perceive however know can generate revenue.
At one level, a personality makes an offhand crack about how considered one of them “can’t code for shit,” however there’s actually no indication any of those guys really understand how the tech that’s made them wealthy works. All whereas they speak in a blase vogue about being “post-human” within the subsequent 5 years — Venis is certain that tech shall be prepared. He says it with the identical confidence as a CEO promising a Mars base by 2028.
Over Succession‘s 4 seasons, creator Jesse Armstrong developed an actual expertise for tearing down the self-importance of the Roy household, and as author and director of Mountainhead he deploys the same technique. “Silly individuals speaking like they’re good” principally defines 75% of the dialogue from Succession, and it’s fascinating to see Armstrong discover a unique approach on it, peppering these traces with extra invented slang that these guys positively assume makes them sound cooler than they’re.
Mountainhead (HBO)
There was an emotional core to the Succession story, although, that introduced some recognizable humanity out of its characters — particularly, the battle for a kiss from Daddy. The lads up on the mountain, in the meantime, are all about posturing amongst themselves, whilst actual destruction begins to pile up outdoors.
Over the course of the 110-minute runtime, a number of notable twists escalate the motion, resulting in among the film’s wildest darkish comedy, performed just like the driest of champagnes. But Mountainhead isn’t all that cinematic in its execution: It’s higher approached as a self-contained experiment in storytelling, one that may translate fairly simply to the stage given the chance.
This forged proves particularly recreation for that: Cory Michael Smith (Gotham, Saturday Evening) is a reside wire on display screen, his nearly manic certainty unwavering, whereas Steve Carell retains his means to emote tempered, delivering considered one of his most reserved performances up to now. Ramy Youssef’s Jeff is perhaps the one one with a totally functioning conscience, a high quality that units him aside from the others, particularly Jason Schwartzman’s endlessly brown-nosing Hugo — the “poorest” of the bunch, and all the time conscious of that.
The most important draw back to Mountainhead is that for many who didn’t take pleasure in Succession as a result of the characters weren’t that likable… properly, think about watching a quartet of Kendall Roys all attempting to impress one another. Armstrong’s dialogue flows like nobody else’s, however there’s one thing just a bit bit insufferable about listening to silly individuals speak like they’re good, and Armstrong doesn’t draw back from that side.
Whereas Mountainhead was first introduced in January 2025, it was filmed in March — just about concurrently with information stories about what occurs once you let an unqualified fool play his chainsaw video games with authorities infrastructure. It’s laborious to think about the timing being higher for this film because of this, but it doesn’t promise any options or hope for the issue it acknowledges: The best way wealth can warp a human soul. The one downside cash can’t repair.
Mountainhead premieres Saturday, Could thirty first at 8:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and Max. Try the trailer under.
