Ramy Youssef, Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell and Jason Schwartzman in ‘Mountainhead.’
Macall Polay/HBO
The tech-bro wealthy, they aren’t such as you and me. They deal with the world prefer it’s their frat home. They view atrocities not as losses of human life however as “atrocitopportunities.” They get excessive on the fumes of their very own disruption. They purchase non-public planes, non-public safety armies, non-public compounds within the Snowy Hills of Utah, and Argentina — as in, the complete nation of Argentina — on a whim. They assume nothing of killing one among their very own, ought to a formerly-down-for-anything bro not view the whole and utter breakdown of recent society as an opportunity to remake Earth 2.0 in their very own exfoliated, extremely toned picture. They refuse to fiddle whereas Rome burns, however hey, they know a ton of enterprise capitalists who’d fund an app that’d mean you can soundtrack twenty first century Ragnarok by way of the dubstep deep cuts of your alternative.
Think about a feature-length episode of Succession that handled the ultimate season’s villain, GoJo CEO Lukas Matsson, as its essential character after which multiplied him by 4, and also you’d have one thing like Mountainhead, Jesse Armstrong‘s caustic, corrosive satire of Silicon Valley mega-royalty run amuck. (It’s on Max now and premieres on HBO correct tonight.) The British showrunner of that blisteringly cynical drama spent 5 years and 39 episodes giving us a portrait of filthy wealthy folks pulling strings and behaving badly. You assume the elite of the elite are damaged, petty, and sociopathic, the present frequently and rhetorically requested. You haven’t any concept. He now focuses all that bile and ire on the Musks, the Thiels, the Bezoses and the Zuckerbergs who really feel they’re modern Caesars, and wonders aloud: What’s to cease them from taking the whole lot over?
However first, there shall be dick-measuring contests. Or moderately, net-worth-in-billions-measuring contests, which is the One-percenter contingent’s model of slapping phalluses subsequent to rulers on tabletops. Among the many Brewsters, i.e. the quartet of CEO alphas which have gathered collectively for what’s alleged to be a super-chill poker weekend, the present champ could be Venis (Cory Michael Smith), whose Fb-like platform Traam has simply launched some main additions to their in-house content-creation suite. In second place is Jeff (Ramy Youssef), an AI guru getting a number of love from the general public sector about an anti-deepfake filter his firm has concocted. The bronze medal goes to Randall (Steve Carell), the group’s elder statesman and self-admitted oracle of Hegelian knowledge. Rounding out the group is Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), also called Superman. Or moderately, that’s “Soup-erman,” derived from his unique nickname “Soup Kitchen”; this runt of the litter nonetheless spells billionaire with a capital M.
Hugo is internet hosting his longtime buds at his new place exterior of Park Metropolis — critical props to the manufacturing design staff for making this real-life getaway one way or the other appear even uglier and extra bunker-like — within the hopes of adjusting his pole place. He’s received a meditation app that can rework the psychological well being area, particularly since that sector is blowing up resulting from world instability. Who higher to hit up for funding then his Brewski besties?
He’s not the one one with an agenda, nevertheless. That content-creation app on Traam is stoking critical sectarian violence all over the place from Kansas to Kazakhstan, and Venis wants Jeff to promote him his AI to appease his board. Jeff, having apparently downloaded one thing resembling a conscience, needs nothing to to do along with his previous pal’s “4Chan on fucking acid” shitshow. He’s nonetheless pissed about some podcast feedback Venis made and is comfortable to see him twist within the wind; plus the catastrophes are doing wonders for his inventory. And Randall? He’s dying of most cancers, and indignant that these so-called medical doctors he’s employed to remedy him say they will’t. But when he can get Venis to fast-track his imaginative and prescient of downloading consciousness on-line, immortality is only one improve away.
The extra these guys trash-talk one another, suck up to one another, hug it out, slug it out, undermine and over-inflate their respective achievements, the extra that Mountainhead sketches an image of those Grasp of the Universe in a way that often attracts blood. There are sufficient quotable traces of dialogue within the film’s first half to remind you why Succession was, pound for pound, probably the most profanely humorous exhibits on TV throughout its run. As soon as the choice to assault one among their very own dominates the second half, you may really feel the zingers lose their sting and the story beginning to sag. However as with Armstrong’s five-season Historical past of the Decline and Fall of the Roy-man Empire, there’s an actual consideration paid right through relating to the way in which that the highly effective communicate. And extra importantly, how they use language to masks, justify, salve and dismiss their self-serving rottenness. Phrases matter, however solely once they assist these males underwrite, say, releasing instruments that permit for the power to differentiate truth from fiction. Or to allow them to sleep at night time whereas entire populations kill one another. Or to permit them to homicide somebody but retain the ethical excessive floor, as a result of, y’know, Nietzche.
“Do you consider in different folks?” Venis asks, in a uncommon second of sincerity, to Randall. “I believe one has to?” his mentor replies, and given the way in which that Carell spins the sentence tells you the way performative such notions as religion in humanity is for these guys. (All 4 of the celebs eat heartily right here, although we would give the sting to Smith, who offers Venis the identical stage of smarmy, superiority-complex-driven douchebaggery that he gave Chevy Chase in Saturday Night.) Which is why the band of bros’ choice that they need to actually take over the world appears like a logical subsequent step. Who or what’s cease them?
No, actually, we’re asking, and so is Armstrong: How might we preserve these delusional ratfuckers from what they consider is their future of whole dominion over humanity? They already management the {hardware}, the software program, the bogus intelligence that has supplanted precise intelligence, the power to separate truth from self-destructive LOLZ fiction. The one factor of their approach is their very own ADHD and dysfunctional group dynamic. Mountainhead takes its identify from Hugo’s snowy retreat, which finally doubles as a type of Eagle’s Nest for his or her would-be New World Order; the moniker’s resemblance to The Fountainhead, designed by “Ayn Bland,” is duly famous. However we’d recommend an alternate title for what usually appears like a documentary of our apocalypse, now: 4 Tech Bros, 1 Coup. This what occurs when “transfer quick and break shit” turns into the ruling class’s gospel. What you find yourself with is a world damaged sooner than a dashing click on.
From Rolling Stone US.