Screening at New York Film Festival: Tony Gilroy’s ‘Behemoth!’
Observer · · g5128581
Gilroy seldom finds meaningful visual or thematic throughlines, resulting in a work of heightened moments and performances that work wonders individually, but never harmonize.
Behemoth! employs a murderers’ row of Hollywood composers— James Newton Howard , Alan Silvestri , Brandon Roberts , Michael Abels , Emily Bear , Lukas Frank , Michael Giacchino , Henry Jackman and Nami Melumad —names responsible for some of your favorite movie soundtracks. It also features performances by a remarkable ensemble. Yet its acoustic and human elements seldom cohere around its playfully structured story, which justifies the movie’s self-reflexive musical gimmick, but little else.
The film, from Michael Clayton director and Andor creator Tony Gilroy, follows renowned musician Alex Serian (Pedro Pascal) upon his sudden return to L.A., a mild mystery it unravels through flashbacks as Alex plays his cello during recording sessions. In the process, its Russian-nesting-doll narrative is imbued with compositions ranging from booming to mellifluous, recontextualizing dramatic segues from Alex’s life as he reflects on them, and we learn more about what took him from L.A. to Dallas to Chicago, and eventually, back to the Hollywood Hills, over 16 years. However, in assembling these scattered pieces, Gilroy seldom finds meaningful visual or thematic throughlines, resulting in a work of heightened moments and performances that work wonders individually, but never harmonize.
Hailing from a musical family, Alex has slid down the ladder of acclaim and found himself back in California after the industry moved elsewhere (owing to factors like recent wildfires and COVID-19). Leaving philharmonics behind for film scores, ad jingles and fancy birthday parties, he collaborates with old friends and up-and-comers alike as he tries to find his footing, but this is merely the backdrop to a story about how he got here. The destination is actually a lot more interesting than the journey. In L.A., he mentors a younger musician, Bronte (Kaya Ralls), while keeping tabs on a 15-year-old prodigy, Viviana (Alexa Swinton), who releases secret music projects online and has a mysterious connection to Alex’s past. However, brief chapters of his romantic relationships in other cities over the years help sketch the broad plot of his life, without really detailing his story.
BEHEMOTH! ★★1/2 ( 2.5/4 stars ) Directed and written by: Tony Gilroy Starring: Pedro Pascal , Olivia Wilde , Eva Victor , Alexa Swinton , Kaya Ralls , Erik Griffin, JoBeth Williams, Margarita Levieva, Hank Azaria, Will Arnett Running time: 127 min.
It’s a whole lot of “what” with some haphazard “how” and “why,” but the conceit is at least intriguing. As each new project comes Alex’s way, like a new movie score, Gilroy’s camera pushes in on him as he plays, and the music bleeds into his memories of distinct chapters in his life, usually surrounding moments of him avoiding major conflict and hiding from his feelings. There’s a mischief to some of this cross-pollination; for instance, a propulsive track for a new spy movie scores a flashback of him trying to avoid his wild-eyed philanthropist ex Carol (Olivia Wilde; what a year she’s had ), while more calming and familiar strings take him back further in time to his classical days playing alongside conflicted violinist Nadia (Eva Victor), with whom he had an illicit affair. It’s as though he were retroactively re-framing his own memories in the form of genre fiction. Is this a cool flourish? Absolutely. Does it say anything about music, cinematic imagery or even Alex as a person? Not so much.
While these detours blur the lines of musical diegesis, they’re more informative than thematically resonant. They build on the factual details of Alex’s life, but rarely paint a picture of who he is beyond distant observations of his fractured relationships. His brother Andy (Will Arnett), for instance, is a rocker burnout turned podcaster, a brief role Arnett makes a meal of by appearing troubled and frayed. But the longer Behemoth! goes on, the more its chronology feels strung together via stream of consciousness—“and then, and then, and then”—rather than care for emotional cause and effect.
There’s plenty of humor to be found, especially as Pascal plays the lonely straight man to a number of colorful characters. He ends up in some bizarre scenarios himself, one of which involves sneaking into a private event at a lavish mansion, at which point the score becomes appropriately gripping. However, the movie never goes full-tilt with its absurdities, in the vein of, say, Under the Silver Lake , the ultimate recent example of L.A.’s idiosyncrasies manifesting as psychological drama. Gilroy and cinematographer Damián García move the camera with momentum, and capture spaces with alluring sweeps, but the images never feel vital or explosive, even within their strict, naturalistic confines. They move, but feel static at their core. The professional details of Alex’s world engender curiosity—how musicians relate to each other in these studios, how they feel about their bosses, and so on—but Behemoth! is by no means a film in which professional process builds to enveloping drama. It merely hangs around in the background, as a point of curiosity.
Pascal himself delivers career-best work as a man whose troubles gradually come to light from behind his withheld anguish, and who refuses to introspect on some of the reasons for his avoidance (one anecdote in particular hints at unresolved sexual trauma). However, that the movie spends so much time a decade or more in the past ends up its undoing, for one very peculiar reason: the digital facelift given to Pascal to de-age him, a pursuit of physical verisimilitude that costs the drama its emotional authenticity. This cosmetic smoothing is stifling, and renders his performance uncanny when it should be the most wrenching thing in the world.
Still, despite being a film of broken shards, their jagged nature does, mercifully, lead to quiet and powerful moments near the end, when Alex finally comes face to face with the young musician who’s captured his attention. As Viviana, a musical savant born to a billionaire family, Swinton puts on a clinic of playful specificity and spins an entire universe out of mere minutes of screen time. It’s deeply fascinating work from the teenage actress, who creates a fleeting but delicate dynamic with Pascal in their limited time together, in a manner that makes Behemoth! almost work. The many reasons for Alex’s return do eventually come to light, and as he picks up the pieces of a broken life, the film eventually approaches a place of catharsis, resulting in a powerful conclusion to a story that you’d wish had earned it in the first place.