Mountainhead is the new feature film from Succession creator Jesse Armstrong – but do its billionaire tech bros get their comeuppance in the end? Find out below.
The satirical comedy-drama is Armstrong’s directorial feature debut and stars Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith and Ramy Youssef as four billionaire friends who go on a secluded weekend retreat as the world finds itself in utter turmoil – and it’s all their fault.
The film, which was also written by Armstrong, was released on HBO and Max on May 31 in the United States. UK viewers are able to watch it now via Sky and NOW TV.
The film was turned around in a notably short period of time, with Armstrong only beginning to write the screenplay in January this year. An HBO Original production, it was filmed almost entirely in a single location in Park City, Utah over the course of five weeks in March and April.
Armstrong first gained prominence as a co-creator of Peep Show and Fresh Meat alongside Sam Bain and has also written for The Thick Of It, In The Loop and Four Lions. The success of Succession for HBO has seen the two parties continue their creative partnership.
Mountainhead ending explained: Do the tech bros get away with it?
As with Succession, Mountainhead is based around the inner lives of some of the world’s most powerful people – Smith’s Venis Parish, the owner of a social media platform that has created a tsunami of disinformation and provoked global political upheaval; Carell’s Randall Garrett, a mentor to the group who has incurable cancer; Youssef’s Jeff Abredazi, the owner of a giant AI company; and Schwartzman’s Hugo Van Yalk, a sub-billionaire that the others mockingly nickname ‘Soup Kitchen’.
They meet at Van Yalk’s remote mountain home, which they refer to as ‘Mountainhead’, in a nod to Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead, a controversial novel fetishised by many tech bros for its glorification of extreme individualism.
Each of the four have ulterior motives, with Venis craving Jeff’s AI fact-checking technology so that his social media app cannot be held accountable for the catastrophic spread of disinformation, but Jeff does not want to be a part of Venis’ creation. Randall, meanwhile, hopes Venis’ work will allow for a ‘transhuman’ future in which his consciousness will be saved from his dying body, and Hugo wants the others to invest in his “meditation super-app”.
Amid growing tension among the group, Randall, Venis and Hugo concoct a plan to kill Jeff so they can take control of his AI company. They botch the murder attempt, however, and Jeff flees to a sauna, where Hugo uses the house’s smart system to trap him. Under duress, they manage to convince Jeff to sign an agreement to allow his company to be incorporated into Venis’ social media platform in a deal that will also finally make Hugo a billionaire.
The next morning, as they prepare to leave, Venis corners Jeff and they agree to continue with their deal on the condition that Randall is left out. As he leaves, Randall notices the two of them excitedly embrace each other and comes to realise that his hope of overcoming his terminal diagnosis is disappearing.
The film ends with Hugo flicking through a raft of news clips of riots and political disorder around the world, before the camera pulls back to show him on the balcony of his mountain mansion as he switches to his meditation app and breaks into a broad smile.
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