By Friday I was getting a little tired of everyone saying we should support “Digger” because it was original, and not a franchise.
OK, but “Digger” is boring and convoluted.
Then I saw the New York Film Festival centerpiece film, “Behemoth!”
Tony Gilroy is such a good filmmaker that I knew he wouldn’t let us down. (He also wrote the screenplay.) In “Behemoth!” he gives Pedro Pascal his chance to star in a major release and win all the kudos.
Pascal is 51, and has been chipping away at stardom since he appeared in “Game of Thrones” in 2014. I don’t know what he was doing before that, but since then it seems like the Chilean born actor has been everywhere all at once. He even starred in the first season of “The Last of Us” on HBO, then he was the revealed face of the Mandalorian in that movie, and Reed Richards in “The Fantastic Four.” If he hadn’t turned up in tabloid long lens photo from a yacht this summer, you’d think Pascal just went from film to film hoping next one would hit.
And so it has. In “Behemoth!” he plays a well regarded classical cellist. Alex Serian is the son and grandson of famous musicians, as well. He plays with different symphonies around the world, and gets gig work on movie soundtracks. Alex is not married and has a cloudy love life. He’s being stalked by the hilarious Olivia Wilde when we meet him, she won’t accept their break up.
Alex also has a brother, Andy, in Los Angeles, played by Will Arnett for comic relief. This gives us some insight into their parents, particularly their mother, played by Jobeth Williams (although looking nothing like the actress I remember).
Gilroy presents us with an unusually fractured timeline of a screenplay that introduces the glorious Eva Victor as a love that gets away. Her Nadia is sleeping with Alex upon meeting (or standing, as it were) but she’s going to marry a wealthy guy who owns a lot of things and has a mansion.
Once Nadia disappears from the story, we forget about her for a bit because Alex has all those family complications — the brother, the mother with dementia, and, you know, work. This is not at all like Cate Blanchett in “Tar,” by the way. Alex has no interest in running a symphony, let alone drive everyone crazy with a domineering attitude. He’s just trying to survive.
This is where the other major character comes into play: the movie’s soundtrack and score. Gilroy enlisted no fewer than nine composers to collaborate on something called “The Behemoth Collective.” As we watch Alex’s performances in various situations, the music is all written by this group that includes heavyweights such as Michael Giacchino, James Newton Howard, Alan Silvestri, Emily Bear, and Lukas Frank.
They’re like the Avengers of swelling soundtracks. If Searchlight doesn’t do a live concert at Carnegie Hall with all these people, I will be severely disappointed. (I guess they’ll do it Disney Hall, since the studio owns it.)
There’s a twist in Alex’s life, of course, with clues that are dropped bit by bit. Not a total shock, but Nina — who passed away in the following 15 years — left him a gift. One of the best scenes in the film is Pascal entering and then escaping that mansion during her funeral. It mirrors an earlier scene of him ducking Olivia Wilde, and I was a sucker for the whole thing.
Pascal gives Alex a lovely nonchalance, a world weariness of having to carry the nepo baby Hollywood history and try and keep going despite lessening interest in the game. It looks easy, but it’s not. It’s the best work Pascal has done, and I think he knows it. For the Q&A on stage at Alice Tully Hall after the premiere he wore a more less normal outfit. Usually he dresses flamboyantly, but I think at that point he knew he was going to be accepted at last.
Let’s see “Behemoth!” in the mix for Best Picture, Pascal for Best Actor, and Olivia Wilder for getting applause in the middle of a premiere. I’d see this movie again just for that performance.
