Keep in mind while watching Mountainhead that any similarities to living persons are coincidental, and probably inevitable. Premiering on HBO (Max), the black comedy by the creator and writer of Succession, Jesse Armstrong, is a timely commentary on the current state of the world, parodying the increasingly noxious influence exerted by tech billionaires in our lives. AI and social media may be perceived as a scourge or salvation — depending on your political bent or stock portfolio — but the particular personalities pushing them on society are so ubiquitous we don’t even need to bother explaining the trope. Let’s just say, these are the types of entrepreneurs who drive otherwise sane humans to key complete strangers’ Teslas in impotent rage.
Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef portray the jocular and abrasive moguls. Each man possesses something that the other covets. Uninhibited yet hypersensitive, the story’s protagonists invite comparisons to Elon Musk, and to a lesser extent, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Jeff Bezos, among others. To slip into the headspace of our technological overlords, Armstrong did a peculiarly modern type of research to gather insight. We won’t spoil the plot, but rest assured, the exaggerated tone and plot are what you’d expect when the world’s richest men chill out together like ex-frat boys.
How To Win Friends and Influence People
Clearly taking some hints from the ’70s film Network, and literary cues from Ayn Rand’s philosophical 1943 novel The Fountainhead — which is featured on a nightstand just in case you missed the pun — Mountainhead never hides the fact that these are not role models. However, don’t worry; you shouldn’t need to do any homework to watch this film. The themes turned out to be universally applicable to our time; the attitude and mannerisms of tycoon CEO Venis Parish resemble those of a certain rocket-building South African immigrant. It probably wasn’t supposed to be a Musk movie, but it turns out that sometimes stereotypes are impossible to avoid.
The revelry comes to a halt as riots break out across the world after the latest update to the social media platform “Traam” run by Venis (played by Smith), who is both the world’s richest man and the source of the cataclysmic misinformation event caused by unmoderated fake content. Each character is battling some personal demon in addition to the deepfake outbreak, nonchalantly dismissing them as problems that enough money can make disappear like a modern-day Jay Gatsby.
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Armstrong developed his concept for the satire after months of following the saga of convicted felon and crypto scammer Sam Bankman-Fried. However, the character gives off vibes channeling Donald Trump’s confidante, Musk, both men peddling the same high-risk, high-reward tech, AI, and social media schemes, mingling with the same venture capitalists and all-too-eager government officials.
The Silicon Valley (Mind)Set
The drama veers quickly from serious character study to something just short of a South Park episode, characters expounding their philosophies in a mix of corporate buzzwords and internet slang that reduces the characters to caricatures. Not exactly naturalistic writing, but rather the punchy, erudite, sitcom-like quips that are the signature of Jesse Armstrong, formerly a writer of Veep and In the Loop. Chatting with Newsweek, actor Cory Michael Smith summed up the stereotypical Silicon Valley start-up CEO as the kind that has worked to become rich to have the freedom to flaunt society’s norms and ignore others’ thoughts or feelings:
“Especially now in this political climate, they say things that are inappropriate, and they’re allowed to both because of the cultural climate and also because they’re so f****** rich, no one can say anything. And they work in an industry that everyone is reliant on, that most people do not understand.”
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For Smith, understanding the thought process of the sort of human who fantasizes about implanting microchips in your brain and AI in your toaster was demoralizing. Shrugging off the collapse of distant foreign governments in countries ending in “stan,” this group of friends prioritizes “G-20 bandwidth,” regardless of the dangers of technology. The Mountainhead (the name of their Utah getaway) quartet define themselves by their wealth, caught up in petty personal crises as the world literally burns. There’s more to authenticity than merely recreating Mark Zuckerberg’s vacant stare or Jeff Bezos’ unsettling giggle, and Armstrong accurately nails the protective bubble where the rich are sheltered by yes-men and the allure of their own utopian fever dreams.
A Dark Satire Without Any Comforting Answers
Venis refuses to take anything seriously, and comes across as an autistic child genius, both smug and naive, brimming with the faith that he and he alone can solve the world’s problems, while simultaneously producing new calamities out of thin air. His mentor, “Papa Bear” Randall (Steve Carell), on the other hand, provides pseudo-intellectual advice, likewise lacking self-inspection or shame. The writer/director opted for this characterization after subjecting himself to hours of media appearances by tech CEOs.
To delve into the soul of the tech billionaire, you must study them in their natural habitat… insufferably long podcasts. “You know, being unaware is a key reason why people are funny, and arrogance is a good way of being unaware,” Armstrong psychoanalyzed the prototypical Silicon Valley start-up magnate to Vulture. “And then there’s a whole intellectual framework, which, broadly speaking, the Silicon Valley tech world brings.” Blind to the suffering or dignity of average people, the film’s protagonists see the bright side in global instability as a great way to expand their interconnected fiefdoms.
The elite in the tech sector, as Armstrong phrases it, communicate less with emotional intelligence than through raw Objectivism, displaying “straight-up arrogance, which is both scary and comic.” Begging the question: Does the cut-throat tech environment create the tech-bro persona, or are risky, cutting-edge technologies impossible without slightly unhinged individuals like this? And if we despise these people so much, how do we reconcile our obsession and dependence on their products? A dilemma that Armstrong doesn’t even pretend to have a response to. Mountainhead is streaming on HBO/Max.
This story originally appeared on Movieweb
