'The Mountain': Release date, plot, cast, trailer, and everything you need to know about the upcoming Jeff Goldblum movie
Jeff Goldblum's latest film 'The Mountain' puts the spotlight on lobotomy where he plays Dr Wallace Fiennes, who embarks on a tour of sorts to promote lobotomies as a treatment for mental health patients in 1950s America. While lobotomy may seem like a distant medical practice, it was very prevalent up until the 1950s. Today, lobotomy is a disparaged procedure, a byword of medical barbarism and an exemplary instance of the medical trampling of patients' rights.
Set in 1950s America, the film centers on Dr. Wallace and Andy who go around on a tour selling the dishonored medical practice of lobotomy like insurance. The drama, directed by Rick Alverson ('The Comedy' and 'Entertainment'), was selected to be screened in the main competition section of the 75th Venice International Film Festival — where it received a lot of positive feedback from fans and critics alike.
The movie is loosely based on the American neurologist Walter Freeman's decline after his brainchild, lobotomy, came under scrutiny. Alverson referred to the film as "anti-utopia" describing it as a "counterweight" to the American "narrative of unlimited potential and boundless opportunity".
Release date
The movie is set to release on July 26 this year
Plot
Here is the official synopsis for the film: "1950s America. Since his mother’s confinement to an institution, Andy has lived in the shadow of his stoic father. A family acquaintance, Dr. Wallace Fiennes, employs the introverted young man as a photographer to document an asylum tour advocating for his increasingly controversial lobotomy procedure. As the tour progresses and Andy witnesses the doctor’s career and life unravel, he begins to identify with the institutions’ patients. Arriving at a California mountain town, a growing center of the New Age movement, they encounter an unconventional French healer who requests a lobotomy for his own daughter, Susan."
Cast
Jeff Goldblum as Dr. Wallace Fiennes
Jeff Goldblum really needs no introduction. He is best known for his film 'Jurassic Park', 'Independence Day', and their sequels — 'The Lost World: Jurassic Park' and 'Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom', and 'Independence Day: Resurgence' — all of which were some of the highest-grossing films of his time. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film for directing the short film 'Little Surprises'.
Tye Sheridan as Andy
Sheridan plays the role of Andy, a troubled young man who acts as the doctor's assistant and photographer who goes on this lobotomy promotional tour with him, but doubts the brutal practice especially since his own mother was subjected to it.
The actor is best known for playing Cyclops/Scott Summers in 'X-Men' film franchise and in 'Ready Player One'.
Creator
Rick Alverson as writer and director
In an interview, with respect to the film, Alverson had said, "A lot of my films are anti-Utopian because they are a counterweight to an overabundance of hyperbolic positive messages in cinema and the media, particularly in the US, that are all aspirational, that present a narrative of unlimited potential and boundless opportunities, things that are really vital for societies that are deprived of resources and hope. In cultures like the US and Europe, with an amount of privilege and a disproportionate amount of the world’s wealth and wellbeing, using these utopian narratives constantly in cinema or media and entertainment, there’s a surplus of that. It’s dangerous; it disconnects us from the world’s limitations, the fact that limitations make up everything around us, that they let us comprehend the beauty of the world but also our place in it, and without them, we become disconnected from things, we don’t understand anymore. The idiocy in the US of government people denying global warming is real is a byproduct of this complete disconnect from the actuality and physicality of the world. It’s the narrative that we are unbound by these constraints. The film is about constraints and limitations."
Alverson's films are known by their departure from traditional 3 act structure and confrontational nature. He is known for 'The Builder', 'The Comedy', and 'Entertainment'.
Trailer
The last time we saw lobotomy as a premise for a story, it was in the adult animated series 'BoJack Horseman's hard-hitting fourth season. But Alverson's treatment of the subject, going by the trailer, is a lot more surreal. Goldblum's Dr. Wallace is a doctor who strongly believes in the cause of lobotomy — he believes that jamming metal rods into people's brains through their eyes is going to ameliorate their condition. The trailer also shows the rage that Andy's quiet character lives through.
Where to watch
The movie is scheduled to hit theatres on July 26, 2019.
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