Succession creator Jesse Armstrong has proven he has a unique ability to deliver captivating, funny, and scathing satirical critiques of the grotesque American business elite. So I was interested to see what he’d do with his feature film debut as both writer/director in the same space, albeit now pivoting to Silicon Valley broligarchs (societally pertinent at the moment).
Unfortunately, Mountainhead is just a dud of a film. In an age where we see tech billionaires acting like reckless assholes on a daily basis in every corner of media, an extravagant cinematic representation of that is just not interesting per the absence of novelty and relatability. With Succession, the personal relationship drama enabled a spectrum of empathy that gave permission for the audience to connect with slivers of the smug/unlikable characters. Here, there’s absolutely nothing to connect with in any way on a human level.
And perhaps that’s the point? This small cast is made up of ONLY the richest of the rich positing disgusting ideas, morals, and ambitions of world domination. But without even the tiniest ounce of empathy, the comedic bits fall completely flat because I hate these people. I don’t find anything they’re doing funny, even though that’s the intent as they’re bumbling around with a cockamamie assassination plot. I don’t care who lives or who dies. I hate every single person. Why am I watching this? I guess I’m hate-watching.
Performances are mixed. Cory Michael Smith (who was GREAT as Chevy Chase in Saturday Night) has a commanding screen presence as the defacto Musk/Zuckerberg. Jason Schwartzman is good. Steve Carell is OK. And unfortunately I find Ramy Youssef’s acting insufferable. So if I’m going to spend two hours hate-watching assholes, ideally there would be a wider breadth of unique/memorable performances to latch onto and engage with.
Some of the societal ideas are interesting. The theoretical dangers of AI deepfakes inciting geopolitical unrest are terrifying. And the billionaire objectives of becoming immortal – either via leaving Earth for another planet or uploading one’s consciousness digitally – are astute on paper. But at the end of the day, I already see every single one of these ideas every single day I open social media. Satire works best when it positions the observations about the real-life subject as an exaggerated caricature. Or discovers a new truth the audience hasn’t thought about.
This just felt like a reality show of evil billionaires and what they’re actually doing right now. So if a film can’t deliver any tangible entertainment value cinematically, then it’s not a worthwhile endeavor as a film nor satire.
