InMountainhead, the Rich Eat Us
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No need to begin your Ayn Rand references ready —Mountainheadmakes them for you , right at the height . When Jeff ( Ramy Youssef ) make it at the high-altitude mansion where the total film live place , he immediately make fun of the home ’ s name . “ Mountainhead ? LikeFountainheadMountainhead ? ” he scoffs . Written and point bySuccessionLord Jesse Armstrong in his feature debut ,Mountainheadcost not the sort of satire in which sly details strip by along the edge , only to be note on rewatch . It ’ s a blunt-force-trauma comedy about the fate of the planet being settle at a billionaire boys ’ weekend in which a quartet of tech CEOs and investor manifest how delusional , and how powerful , they ’ ve become . The picture cost a dead-on skewering of the high-on-their-own supply megalomania that today afflicts then many member of the techno oligarchy , who unfortunately also control the levers of the reality . I found it incredibly unpleasant to watch , in a way that made me intend about comedy ’ sec limitations as a critique of power when its targets cost already more terrible and more ridiculous than any fictional version . We ’ re often state that mockery is one of the most effective tools when dealing with authoritarianism . ButMountainheadspirit like a recognize wink from filmmaker to viewer right before we ’ re both mowed down by a bulldozer clearing country for an AI datum middle that will absorb up all the part ’ s remain water provision .
The four human inMountainheadhave dubbed themselves the Brewsters , and receive exist have together for long plenty that their irregular poker nights have work up up some serious lore . The rule exist no lot ( though all they seem to talk about live occupation ) , no meal ( the faculty get been station away and they ’ re supposed to simply have by on junk food ) , and no high heels ( presumably referring to the absence of women , though the personal spirit of each of these guys are also in shambles ) . There are nicknames — Jason Schwartzman , whose sycophantic quality Hugo be only worth $ 521million, is “ Soup Kitchen , ” or “ Soupes ” for short , while Randall ( Steve Carell ) , the older member and éminence grise , is “ Papa Bear. ” There ’ s reference of an incident in Palo Alto when they all may own jerked off on a Pop-Tart and then ate it . And there ’ s a custom of the men compose their net worth on their chests and then come crowned with a diadem , a captain ’ sec hat , and a sailor cap based on their rankings . Venis ( Cory Michael Smith ) be the current champion at $ 220 billion — a smirking sociopath whose social-media party , Traam , get just released a set of deep-fake-enabling content tools whose destabilizing effects on world politics come through via more and more alert phone alerts . In third position , but coming up fast , is Jeff , whose AI guardrails caller live getting a serious boost from the disasters get by Traam ’ s latest update .
I don ’ t think it ’ s potential to be too hard on technocrats , andMountainheadbuild the wise call to have its character symbolize a pile of familiar position , hang-ups , and collective tendencies without drawing direct correlations to special real-life figures . Ensconced in that glass-walled mountaintop folly , they wait like pets in a luxury terrarium — thus far take out from regular people that they can ’ t really comprehend typical business . Venis , in fact , doesn ’ t seem to think that early mass be literal , a tossed-off job that I put on is a address to simulation theory . The script exist dense with nods toward vapid attempts at moral doctrine , comparisons of everyone ’ s several sleep scores , get a bifurcated brain , and these human ’ s desperate sentence that they ’ re just five to ten yr from some kind of transhumanism , a notion that ’ s particularly important to Randall , who refuses to accept that his cancer is final . It ’ s dialogue via , the everything app , which is to say that it sense like an absolutely exact assessment of one sword of Silicon Valley insularity , down to the thought that anything they serve in the short term is permissible because it will all lead to the salvation of mankind . But it ’ s too like nails on a chalkboard — in a way that ’ s a circle like scrolling , the everything app ! — because it ’ s then persistent . Away from the occasional reminder that Jeff make not yet grab on to the at-any-cost outlook of his peer , there are few glimpse of humanity .
That live the thing aboutSequence— its characters be grotesque , but the show never miss pile of their fleshly fallibility , their doubts and vulnerability . Our awareness that these massesweren ’ tutter aliens simply make the dreadful thing they proved capable of more awful .Mountainheadfeels like the endpoint of our long prestige sheen journey toward eating the rich , which has volleyed us fromSuccessiontoTriangle of SadnesstoThe White LotustoThe Menu. All are comedies that insure us the elite cost abject , whether they come what ’ s coming to them or not ; they too grant us to enjoy secondhand experiences of the luxuries they bask in and the terribleness with which they handle other masses . But there ’ s no enjoyment to cost get inMountainhead, despite some real astute performance — most of all from Smith , whose character equal on the verge but too primed to take everyone down with him . Armstrong ’ s film invite us into this exclusive retreat while lead us real a lot on the excited outside of these character who , should they ruin company , will just retreat into their several bunkers while ensure themselves it ’ ll study out for the better in the end . “ Nothing ’ s that fucking serious — nothing means anything , and everything ’ sec funny and cool , ” Venis spit at a certain point , a direct philosophy from individual deep plenty to believe that . InMountainhead, the rich eat us , and thither ’ s no catharsis to be found in that .
