BEHEMOTH! (Middleburg FF 2026) – Review by Leslie Combemale
Ok, for those of you who can never get enough of Pedro Pascal, or who love him when he’s at the top of his game, let me start out by saying Behemoth! is Pedro at his very most charismatic. Have you picked up your keys and headed for the theater yet, because that should be enough right there to get you to writer/director Tony Gilroy’s latest feature, but let me give you a few other reasons why it should be at the top of your viewing list.
The story centers on classical cellist and former child prodigy Alex Serian (Pascal) who returns to LA after 20 years playing with elite symphonies. He comes from a family of musicians. His grandfather is the stuff of Hollywood legend, having dropped dead on the MGM stage in 1959. Both his parents performed on countless film scores, now Alex is picking up gigs playing on scores on the same stages as his predecessors. He’s wildly talented, and also wildly dysfunctional in his personal life, as evidenced by a scene in which ultra rich symphony patron Carol (Olivia Wilde) with whom he’s been having an affair, stalks him backstage. His relationships with his brother Andrew (Will Arnett) and lover Nadia (Eva Victor) go off the rails. As an audience, we watch his life unravel, hoping he’ll find a way back to himself and the music he loves.
The plot gets convoluted, but that’s not where the compelling part of the movie lies. It’s in the way the music, composed by nine different composers called The Behemoth Collective, is juxtaposed against his experiences. The scene in which Carol is stalking him is edited against Alex playing one of nine cues for imaginary films. Another scene shows Alex listening to a cue from a cartoon while watching his brother argue with his wife, gesticulations underscored by the music. And so the whole film goes. As the story progresses, each of the nine pieces of music are played against scenes that are happening in Alex’s life. He might be performing cues from scores, but those cues are also the score of his life. GENIUS! And we are led through all this by Pedro Pascal. It is Pascal and editor John Gilroy (Tony’s brother!) who deserve most of the credit, along with writer/director Tony Gilroy, for this highly entertaining and inventive cinematic adventure.
5 out of 5 stars.
