Pedro Pascal’s time as Hollywood’s go-to leading man has mostly been defined by his ability to bring deep sensitivity to high-profile genre projects. Both The Mandalorian’s Din Djarin and The Last of Us’ Joel Miller are gruff, battle-tested men, yet the introduction of a young ward leads them each to bring their walls down and reveal their deep emotional wounds. In The Fantastic Four, Pascal’s biggest blockbuster to date, his Reed Richards helps save the world from Galactus while nursing deep worries about his family. Whether he’s surrounded by superhero flash or galactic mayhem, Pascal always manages to tap into something real.
He does the same in his latest project, Tony Gilroy’s Behemoth! While the film’s title stirs up ideas of gargantuan monsters that may be right at home in the MCU or the dark corners of The Last of Us, it’s something else entirely: a character study of a cellist, Alex Serian. Like many of Pascal’s most beloved characters, Alex nurses complicated family troubles. He’s hurting, yet hesitant to show his vulnerabilities. The role is an astounding showcase for Pascal, and a technically impressive feat. Yet with a story that stumbles through its many movements, it doesn’t quite earn its exclamation point.
What is Behemoth! about?
Credit: Searchlight Pictures
We first meet Serian on a Hollywood scoring stage, where he and the rest of a film orchestra are about to lay down some tracks for an upcoming fictional movie, Spies Don’t Run. As he prepares his cello, the stage comes alive with the politics of the recording session: people disgruntled about booted ensemble members, veterans discussing the influx of younger musicians in the room. In just a few moments, Gilroy creates a real shared history and sense of ritual amongst Alex and his fellow musicians. But as soon as the music begins, Behemoth! cuts to Alex’s previous gig at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
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From here, Behemoth! embraces non-linear storytelling. It ducks and weaves through Alex’s life, including stints at orchestras in Boston and Dallas. Through much of it, the music Alex plays in the present scores his own past. In an early scene, and one of the film’s finest sequences, Alex’s work in Spies Don’t Run accompanies his hasty attempts to evade his ex-lover, Carol Spedding (Olivia Wilde). The score turns a messy breakup into a delicious chase sequence with sky-high stakes, one that’s right at home with Gilroy’s more thriller-forward work, like the Bourne films, Michael Clayton, and certain episodes of Andor. Elsewhere, as Alex plays the love theme from fictional romance Seasons of Glass, Behemoth! segues into a past relationship with prima violinist Nadia Hynes (Eva Victor).
The music in Behemoth! is exceptional.
Credit: Justin Lubin
Gilroy builds a sturdy puzzle box with Behemoth!’s nonlinear storytelling, which verges on cliché but is just saved by the gorgeous scores that bind it together. Behemoth! has not one, not two, but nine composers, each creating separate diegetic pieces for the film. Credited as The Behemoth! Collective, they are: Michael Abels, Emily Bear, Lukas Frank, Michael Giacchino, Henry Jackman, Nami Melumad, James Newton Howard, Brandon Roberts, and Alan Silvestri.
It’s an astonishing group, and each turn in gorgeous work, from Melumad’s elegant harp cue, tied to Alex’s harpist mother (JoBeth Williams), to Abels’ near-mournful cello practice pieces for Alex. Howard’s Spies Don’t Run piece and Silvestri’s composition for fictional blockbuster Behemoth! bring soaring suspense to Alex’s own more ill-advised hijinks. Giacchino even creates a pitch-perfect riff on a Tom and Jerry-style cartoon theme, one that accompanies a fight between Alex’s brother, Andy Serian (Will Arnett), and his wife Toya (Stephanie Sigman). In a perfect showcase for how music dictates a movie’s mood, its over-the-top boings and cymbal crashes match up to physical beats in their argument and turn it into something ridiculous. In these moments, Behemoth! becomes a true love letter to film scoring and the people who bring these pieces of music to life.
However, the rest of the film rarely focuses on the art of scoring. Instead, Gilroy presents music as pressure: Alex and Andy’s mother and father (Hank Azaria) were both musicians who pushed their sons — especially prodigy Alex — into the family business. Aside from having music act as a conduit to family dysfunction, Behemoth! doesn’t truly interrogate Alex’s relationship with the art form that defines his life. How does he feel about the film scores he plays now versus the classical pieces he played in symphony orchestras?
Behemoth! winds up spending more time outside the sound stage than in it, which feels like a missed opportunity considering the rich web of relationships Gilroy weaves in the film’s opening minutes. Instead, what could have been a deep dive into the scoring world veers into a familiar treatise on familial trauma, and the film’s conclusion, while heartfelt, is far too pat.
Pedro Pascal hits new highs in Behemoth!
Credit: Searchlight Pictures
Thankfully, Pascal’s performance does wonders when it comes to smoothing over the cracks in Behemoth!’s story. He is the film’s mesmerizing throughline, at times burning with charisma, at others wryly funny, and almost always bleeding with a pain he doesn’t quite want to show. These are levels that are in Pascal’s wheelhouse, but in Behemoth!, he kicks them up on a notch. (It helps that Gilroy’s camera sticks tightly to Pascal and the sad puppy dog eyes audiences have grown to know and love.)
Pascal leads a tremendous ensemble, but watching the film, there’s a night-and-day difference between the characters arcs offered to Behemoth!’s male and female performers. Most of the women in the film exist solely to form romantic attachments to Alex, or to simply ogle him. His relationship with Nadia should be the heart of the film, yet despite Victor’s impassioned performance, all we know about her is her talent and her frustration with Alex’s nonchalance. Wilde is a scream as Carol, and her fearsome entrance jolts the film into high gear. However, her comedic chops can only go so far to elevate what is ultimately a tired crazy ex-girlfriend caricature. Margarita Levieva does her best to breathe life into a thankless role as one of Alex’s flings, but when he recounts a traumatic story to her, she reacts in a way no human woman would.
Some of the film’s women emerge unscathed: Young cellist Bronte (musician Kaya Ralls) becomes a compelling mentee for Alex, while prodigy Viviana Glenn (Alexa Swinton) lurks fascinatingly in Behemoth!’s margins. But perhaps the clearest divide in how the film treats men and women is the difference in Azaria and Williams’ scenes as Alex’s parents. Williams mostly gets relegated to the role of ailing mother, while Azaria gets a scenery-chewing monologue that’s one of the film’s most intense moments. Gilroy has crafted compelling female characters before, from Michael Clayton to Andor. That he comes up so short here is one of Behemoth!’s biggest frustrations. Here is a film that is technically sublime and boasts a leading performance to match. But add up its narrative shortcomings, and it just fails to strike the perfect chord.
Behemoth! was reviewed out of its world premiere at the New York Film Festival. It hits theaters Dec. 4.