Behemoth!

Behemoth!, the first film fully directed by Michael Clayton‘s Tony Gilroy in fourteen years, tells the story of journeyman cellist Alex Serian (Pedro Pascal), presenting his messy and complicated relationships with colleagues, lovers, friends, and family.

Gilroy gives us Serian’s story chopped up and out of sequence. At least sixteen years pass on screen, something we are supposed to track by the amount of white in Alex’s hair, how much or little Pascal’s face has been disarmingly digitally de-aged, and minor production design flourishes like a Hilary Clinton presidential lawn sign and a banner that says 2010. In tone, the film varies quite wildly. At times, it’s practically an operatic comedy. At other points, it assumes the look and sound of an action-thriller akin to Gilroy’s last film as director, 2012’s The Bourne Legacy. It is a film both playful and serious as it celebrates the work of a fictional classical musician for hire whose primary source of income seems to be playing movie scores as part of a large orchestra.

Gilroy showcases the nuts and bolts of that calling with enough specificity and love that you wonder if he has a background in movie music. He does not, but as a seasoned screenwriter and occasional producer dating back to 1992, he clearly knows the process and has surely witnessed it first-hand being applied to works in the Bourne and Star Wars franchises. For movie fans, Behemoth! turns our attentions to something that is designed to be invisible and manages both to hold us captive and endear us to the protagonist.

Like everything else in this film, our empathy for Alex varies. His affair with Carol Spedding (Olivia Wilde), the Type A wife of a wealthy orchestra donor, is presented only for comedic fallout as she improbably and cinematically stalks him and offers to abandon her marriage for him, a prospect Alex never remotely entertains. Alex’s relationship with violinist Nadia (Sorry, Baby writer-director-star Eva Victor) is shown in both the past and present tense, but in a way that suggests that much more of it landed on the cutting room floor.

Gilroy never settles on one primary narrative or concern for Alex, instead making him the throughline of Fellini-esque chaos. We get glimpses of the family trauma that hangs over the protagonist: a dementia-addled mother (JoBeth Williams, picking up her most notable film credit in decades), a dodgy podcaster brother (Will Arnett, being very Will Arnetty), and an industry-seasoned, egotistical father (Hank Azaria) presented in flashback. Gilroy has given all of these threads ample consideration and they feel authentic in their depictions. One gets the sense that there’s much more footage from all these relationships and that the filmmaker has whittled down in post-production. The one relationship that emerges as our primary thread involves a teenaged musical prodigy (Alexa Swinton) in whom Alex takes uncharacteristic interest.

With its meandering focus and life-affirming beauty, Behemoth! sort of evokes Terrence Malick and may prove to divide moviegoers the way that Malick’s poetic odysseys often do. Despite a marketable leading man and a December release strategically timed to awards season, Gilroy’s film has close to nothing in the way of commercial instincts. This is something that might appeal to sophisticated adult moviegoers who used to catch the new Woody Allen movie each year and continue to stay up on arthouse fare today. Does such a person even still exist?

The film’s best shot at awards season recognition probably lies in its diverse score credited to “The Behemoth! Collective”, nine accomplished composers including James Newton Howard, Alan Silvestri, Michael Giacchino, and Henry Jackman. Pascal also has a legitimate shot at vying for the Golden Globes’ Best Actor (Drama) category, where acclaimed turns by John Malkovich, Ryan Gosling, and Tom Cruise would be separated into the Comedy or Musical category.