SPOILER ALERT – This review does contain details of HBO/Max’s Mountainhead movie – but not theones they asked us not to reveal.
If you are still mourning Jesse Armstrong’s now departed Succession, then the Emmy winning writer’s HBO movie Mountainhead will provide the satirical methadone and “grin f*cking” you’ve been craving.
Still, as is the case with the opiate substitute, despite the altitude of the Park City location, the Ramy Youssef, Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, & Jason Schwartzman starrer might not get you as high as you want.
Filmed deftly and swiftly on location just a couple of months ago in the magnificent peaks of Sundance’s soon-to-be former home of Park City, Utah, multi-Emmy winner Armstrong’s directorial debut depicts a weekend poker retreat by a quartet of tech overlords gone very wrong as the world blows up. Put it this way, the Murdochs were almost certainly lying when the old codger’s family used to brag they never watched Succession. Regardless of what they say or post next weekend, you can be damn sure that Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Peter Thiel, and maybe even Donald Trump will be watching the nearly two-hour long Moutainhead.
They should.
Still, with award season rewards written all over it, from the note perfect performances by the four leads to the terrible topicality, to the fact that the TV Academy loves their Jesse, the May 31 premiering Mountainhead is a little too ripped from the headlines for its own good. A little too fresh to offer much perspective except lots of on-screen deepfake screen time and lots of fake CNN cross-branding of apocalyptic footage of fire and death from a manageable distance.
In fact, with an in-joke from the flick itself, manageable distance is Mountainhead in a b-nut in a nutshell With Kant, Nietzsche and Marcus Aurelius name drops, and Trump or “Mr. President” making a cameo of sorts on the phone (though never heard), Mountainhead is primarily a study in anger management and Post-modern pocket protector portrayal of cool.
Fact: Mirror, mirror on the brutalist wall, who is the richest of them all? is always going to be a bit of fun, especially in Armstrong’s hands.
Still, having put the maniacal Trump back in power last year via massive financial and digital support, the ketamine fueled Musk’s rampage through the federal government the past few months and attempts to revamp his homeland’s apartheid past are nowhere to be found directly in Mountainhead.
Thankfully.
What is there is a saga of content creation tools unveiled in a Beta upgrade to the fictional social media platform TRAAM owned by Smith’s Venis that unleashes chaos and violent unrest throughout Asia and Central Europe, and beyond. Yet Moutainhead lacks the payoff of a shiv stuck straight into the tech overlords. Instead, we are stuck with a well-constructed money shot of flawed f*ck-ups figuratively and, at one point off-screen, literally jerking off.
It is a narrative that aches with its analogy to the bloody anti-migrant and Islamophobic riots and looting that stormed across the UK last year. A horrific situation that in no small part was ignited due to fake assertions on Musk’s X that a “Muslim immigrant” had been responsible for the July 29 fatal stabbing of three little girls at a Taylor Swift-themed dance performance.
On that level, structured and set almost as a stage play in its single central location and its self-described and mockable “smartest men in the world,” Mountainhead feels a little too much too soon most of the time. All of Armstorng’s impeccable dialogue of often inarticulate and jargon spouting billionaire bros is on point as always. Yet, for The Thick of It vet’s skills at cutting the lack of essence of some of the most powerful people on the planet, the endgame seems too illusive. The dangerous fluidity of markets and mankind are temporarily resolved after some quality sauna time and AI guardrails – as the real time and real-life equivalent is happening all around us all the time right now.
Or as one character says to almost silence at one point as global coups and European blackout are on the table: “What about moral issues?”
All of which begs the real question – where is Kendall Roy when you really need him?
The post ‘Mountainhead’ TV Review: It’s The End Of The World In Jesse Armstrong’s ‘Succession’ Successor & The Techlords Feel Fine, Sorta appeared first on Deadline.
