Tech bros rule the world. That much became damningly clear at Donald Trump’s inauguration, when a photo captured four of the world’s most powerful men—Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai, and Elon Musk—standing nearly side by side (along with Bezos’s partner, Lauren Sánchez), all glued to their phones. Tech bows to money and power. And here they are, our spineless nerds, seemingly concerned only with the advancement of technology, not the consequences it brings.
Writer and director Jesse Armstrong poses a question: What happens when four fictional megabillionaires (not unlike our own) vacation for the weekend as the world falls apart? In Mountainhead, we find that for them, business is business—and the world is just a distant, observable game.
Mountainhead is the name Hugo Van Yalk (Jason Schwartzman) gave to his sprawling Utah mansion. For the weekend, he’s invited three of the richest men in the world to hang out, play poker, and indulge in their private boys’ club. They call themselves the Brewsters. First to arrive is Randall (Steve Carell), an aging billionaire with cancer and a small god complex. Next comes Jeff (Ramy Youssef), a brash tech mogul who prides himself on his moral superiority. Finally, Venis touches down (Cory Michael Smith), a clean-cut, emotionally guarded figure whose vulnerability is suffocated by a hardened exterior. The Brewsters’ motto and rulebook—repeated like a mantra—is, “No deals, no meals, no high heels.”
Some of the film’s best moments play as we watch these four talented actors settle into their wealthy archetypes. Venis is unable to talk about his divorce. Randall boils an egg without water. And Hugo—whom the Brewsters call “Souper,” as in, soup kitchen, because he is the poorest—pines after their attention.
This weekend is meant to give these “men at work” a reprieve from their stressful lives. However, the quartet can’t spend a second away from their phones. This is thanks to an update released by Venis’s social media company, Traam, which distributed generative AI so advanced that the masses are using it to overload the Internet with false information—so much disinformation that governments and economies are toppling worldwide. Jeff holds the keys to another AI tool that can decipher reality from generated content, and a simple deal could stop violence worldwide. But, remember, no deals!
A lot of Mountainhead is anchored to regurgitative worries about AI and tech. Most of the jabs at the billionaires are nothing new and nothing too cutting. Perhaps this is what is most unfortunate about the film. Mountainhead isn’t jarring enough to undermine how we’ve already accepted that our lives are in the hands of these tech leaders. Yet, it is undeniably haunting when Venis asks, “Do you believe in other people?” TV-MA, 108 min.
Max
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