‘Succession' creator Jesse Armstrong's ‘Mountainhead' is a too-literal-minded satire
They all have a direct line to the White House, and they all speak in the clipped, speedy patter of the Roy family — and of the characters from 'In the Loop,' Armando Iannucci's superb 2009 satire about bumbling British and America government operatives that Armstrong co-wrote, receiving an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay. Armstrong has a gift for puncturing balloons of power and hoisting the self-important with their own petards. He's also a wizard with one-liners. Walking into Souper's soulless, sprawling Mountainhead, Jeff asks: 'Was your interior decorator Ayn Bland?' It's a great zinger that holds out hope for light touches that never really arrive.
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(l to r) Steve Carell and Ramy Youssef.
Macall Polay/HBO
That's a problem, because this material could really use an infusion of levity to make it go down without choking. Make no mistake, 'Mountainhead' is a comedy, with fangs. But too often it also feels like a literal-minded screed or lecture, not unlike the 2021 Netflix satire 'Don't Look Up,' in which Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence's astronomers struggle to interest the powers that be in the fact that a comet is on an apocalyptic collision course with Earth.
See the short-sighted technocrats, whistling past the global graveyard. Except this time they represent the Musks, Zuckerbergs and Altmans of the world, the new power brokers convinced that their obscene net worths somehow equate to forward thinking that's good for the rest of the world. As Ven and his friends/sycophants justify the destruction and chaos they create, it's impossible to miss the echoes of the current broligarchy's crowing. 'Mountainhead' is nothing if not au courant.
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The second half of the movie takes a plot turn that unfortunately for our purposes falls firmly in the spoiler zone. It does give 'Mountainhead' a jolt of focus and energy, and brings some comic clarity to dark questions that linger over the whole affair: What is the human collateral damage of zero-sum tech bro thinking? Are we all mere negotiating chips in some bizarre big picture we can't quite grasp? The second act of 'Mountainhead' feels more concrete and human than the first. It also feels like it belongs to a different movie.
'Succession' aficionados might find themselves flashing back to some of that series' best and most 'Mountainhead'-relevant episodes. There's Season 2's 'Hunting,' in which the Roy family and associates head to a Hungarian mansion for a corporate retreat that becomes a ritual of humiliation (this is often referred to as the 'Boar on the Floor' episode). And Season 4's 'America Decides,' which finds the Roy-run, Fox News-styled network ATN leaning on the levers of power to determine the winner of a U.S. presidential election.
These stories, too, express their share of incredulous outrage. But they also move with a dancer's nimble grace. 'Mountainhead' is more like a heavyweight boxer, slugging away. It is satire as blunt-force object.
★★
MOUNTAINHEAD
Directed and written by Jesse Armstrong. Starring Steve Carell, Cory Michael Smith, Jason Schwartzman, Ramy Youssef, Hadley Robinson, and Amie MacKenzie. On HBO and Max starting May 31. 108 min. TV-MA (language, mild violence, adult content, wealthy people behaving badly).
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