Mountainhead

"Moutainhead"aspires to be more, than it reasonably achieves.

In one sense its an exercise in moral relativism. Moral judgements for four wealthy tech executives are only true or false, when viewed from their perspective, which is mired in hyper capitalism. For them, morality is grounded in the ruthless pursuit of individual wealth, allegedly to leverage technocratic human evolution (trans-humanism).

When one of them challenges this world view, during a rich pals getaway, things turn darkly comical.

You can see the rather understated critique of the modern obsession with an on line life this film presents. A place where truth is allegedly manufactured, not told. The gleeful, almost childlike immaturity, wilful recklessness and narcissism, of those who have built it. Also on a certain level, the tech elites uselessness. One can't even boil an egg. So much for the value of social media, right?

Well yes and frankly, "no". This film overplays its hand. It tries to promote the mainstream media as a source of truth, when in fact, people have turned to social media precisely "because" of mainstream journalism's unwillingness, to tell truth to power.

In spite of its flaws, social media has given genuine investigative journalists and courageous whistle blowers, a platform to expose the malfeasance of corrupted power. Something this film, rather too conveniently, overlooks.

In summary, this is not a bad film. As a mild, dark comedy, it very reasonably makes wholly valid points about social media and by extension, big tech's, shortcomings. Where it falls short, its its inability to tell the other side of the story. In vogue labels, like "misinformation", so popular with glib politicians and the less than transparent mainstream media, could as easily be applied to them, as they could, the high tech, on line world and those who built it.