Mountainhead

Mountainhead has a cast and premise that should have worked much better for me than it did. Jesse Armstrong's dialogue is sharp, darkly funny, and often uncomfortably timely, using four tech billionaires to satirize wealth, ego, AI, deepfakes, social media manipulation, and unchecked influence. I liked several individual scenes and conversations, but I absolutely hated where the plot ultimately went.

Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef are excellent as morally detached tech elites trapped inside a luxurious mountain estate while the world outside spirals. Their chemistry, insecurity, and power struggles make the chamber-piece setup consistently watchable.

The problem is that the story becomes increasingly exaggerated and implausible. The satire has real bite, but the final act shifts too far into absurd farce for the emotional or dramatic payoff to land. The performances and dialogue are strong, but the plot kept me at a distance.