Henry O'Brien
Succession will undoubtedly go down as one of HBO’s greatest critical hits. It is not hyperbole to place the Jesse Armstrong show with the likes of The Sopranos, The Wire and Game of Thrones as the network’s most beloved programs. Anyone who has seen the show can understand why; the sharp writing, the political humor of Armando Iannucci (an Armstrong collaborator), and remarkable performances. More importantly, the critique of the ultrawealthy via this family Shakespearean drama takes on a supreme level of relevancy as the wealth gap grows further.
Mountainhead, the HBO original film which serves as Armstrong’s directorial debut, feels like a desperate attempt to recapture that success. The result is a total misfire that feels like an early script for a filler Succession episode. The whole film was written in January and finished shooting in March. The fast-track schedule feels apparent as Mountainhead features four woefully underwritten rich guys on a weekend retreat, reacting to the global turmoil that they seem to have some part in causing.
The quartet, after one snowmobile expedition, mostly spend the film on their phones, hearing about all the vague unrest going on in the world and how they can use it to their benefit. We don’t get into the specifics of the global chaos because Armstrong wants us focused on these four. He wants us to understand the complexity of their relationships and how these rich guys react when it’s just them around.
Immediately, you can feel that Randall and his “friends” have god complexes. The world’s richest man, Randall Garrett (Steve Carell), the apparent leader or “papa bear” of this group of tech bro billionaires, receives less-than-ideal news about his cancer prognosis. Randall refuses to believe there is no cure to his ailment, and he angrily requests his doctors to find a way.
Social media CEO Ven Parish (Corey Michael Smith) and AI CEO Jeff Abredazi (Ramy Youssef) both have inflated and combative egos, and the former has staffers who will agree with his every idea and laugh at all his crappy jokes. Then there is Souper Van Yalk (Jason Schwartzman), who owns the titular Mountainhead mansion but is only in the millionaire club and frequently sucks up to his richer friends.
Most of Mountainhead’s runtime is just four unfunny rich people trying to sound like the smartest and most intelligent man in the room. In the worst move of all, Mountainhead has none of the brutal insults that made Succession as funny as it was dramatic. These four guys, all performed adequately by their respective actors, become unlikable in all the opposite ways that made Armstrong’s show so enthralling.
For as unlikable as the Roy children are in Succession, they do seem to suffer from their father’s genuine lack of empathy or warmth, which is why they try to compensate by vying for control of Waystar Royco by making up these quick pitches. By the fourth season, most have a favorite sibling and can feel for them despite their copious amount of money.
Mountainhead’s four rich dudes have some strife, but Armstrong only gives that in spurts that aren’t very interesting or insightful. Randall’s cancer gets him to think about technology that could make humans immortal or “post-human.” Ven runs a social media platform called Traam that has peddled AI-generated disinformation, causing issues around the world. But the platform and the chaotic way he runs it serve as a stand-in for his failure as a father and inability to have positive relationships with anybody. Jeff and Souper, meanwhile, don’t have any of that backstory and feel quite empty.
Succession has the benefit of being a TV show where episodic storylines can progress and develop. Mountainhead, a TV film that takes place over a weekend, can only give us so much. And yet, Armstrong gives the viewer very little new to chew on.
These tech bros are all desperate for more money and power, and see the chaos as a way to achieve that for themselves. They are willing to do anything drastic, including trying to kill Jeff because he wouldn’t want to combine his AI technology with Ven’s social media platform. But the next morning, the whole attempt is treated like a joke by everyone, including Jeff, who knows it’s in his best interest to still work with these fellow rich guys.
In an obvious move, the name of the mansion is a reference to Ayn Rand’s novel “The Fountainhead,” which argues for individualism over collectivism. And each of the four takes on the beliefs of Rand’s book.
The power dynamics shift once a character sees the benefit and profit of teaming up with another. Ven and Jeff go from enemies to reluctant business partners. The power of this final moment feels lost, considering Jeff was already an investor in Ven’s company. So it isn’t a big deal that Jeff and Ven go from hating each other and working together to slightly hating each other less and still working together.
Succession has this element too, where the Roy children continually stab each other back to gain leverage or make a power play. But the familial aspect makes the drama stickier. These four friends feel barely connected (another Armstrong touch is to make the rich people seem like aliens, which just ends up making the movie boring).
It can feel a little unfair to Mountainhead that it will receive comparisons to one of the best shows of the past decade. But Armstrong’s film deals with the same issues as Succession: wealth and power. Nothing about Mountainhead plays as original, and one can only wonder if this tech bro chamber drama would have a little more bite to it if it weren’t made so hastily.
