By Dan Skip Allen

Tony Gilroy has been playing the sandbox of Star Wars the last few years, as he was the creator/showrunner of “Andor” the Disney Plus Series. Before he was working a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, he directed films like “Michael Clayton”, and was the screenwriter for a few of  the Bourne franchise movies. Now he’s back in the directors chair for his latest film “Behemoth” starring Pedro Pascal. It’s a different kind of subject matter than either of these two have worked with before. That being classical music. It’s not a genre a lot of filmmakers work in, but Gilroy made it his own like he was his own maestro. 

Aex Serian (Pedro Pascal) is a cellist for the Chicago symphony orchestra. After a performance one night, he tries to leave the building because he has a woman , Carol (Olivia Wilde), is chasing after him in a gorgeous emerald green dress. He makes his way through a maze of stairwells and down to a garage where he has access to the street. Where there is a blizzard going on outside. He runs down the street to get a cab and pays the cabbie $50. Once he believes he’s safe and gets away from this woman, the cab gets hit by two different cars, and this man ends up in the hospital with a concussion. The cabbie ended up dead, and he had a bunch of scratches on him. This gives him a whole new outlook on life, and he decides to go back home to where he’s from in Los Angeles. Once back home in LA, he gets work on movie scores. 

Pedro Pascal has blown up in the past decade or so as an actor. He has gotten roles as Dinn Djarin in “The Mandalorian” on Disney Plus, Reed Richard’s, Mr. Fantastic, in “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” and Joel Miller in “The Last of Us” on HBO, based on the popular video game. And a lot of other characters in films like “The Materialists”, “Gladiator 2” and “Eddington” but the best performance he’s given in recent memory for me is in “Behemoth!. He’s cool and collected most of the time. When there is a revelation towards the end of the film, he takes it in stride. Inside, he’s screaming, but on the outside, he’s relaxed. That’s how he is most of the time in this film. That’s different from other roles he’s played in the past. Add in to how he had to learn how to play a cello, and this is definitely the best performance of his career to date. I like seeing him branch out into these types of roles to broaden his horizons away from the sci-fi and populous roles he has been playing a lot of in recent years.

I’m not usually a fan of classical music, but in the context of this movie, classical music was like its own character. The music had life. There were scenes edited together with incredible classical music that were intense. A couple I will mention is a scene where Pascal’s character ended a gathering at a house dressed up like a waiter to get an item. He had to make a hasty escape, and the music over this scene was incredible. Another scene not as epic as that but pretty funny was when he visits his brother and he’s playing his brother’s podcast on the radio in the car, and there is some zany music playing. It matches the zanyness going on in the apartment above. It was a pretty funny scene in a very serious movie. The music, whether men and women were playing on screen or if you heard it all came alive in this film. It’s like a starring character all on its own. That was a pretty cool thing to have in this film. 

There is a pretty big supporting cast in this movie, but I’ll only mention a few of the standouts for me. First is Olivia Wilde. She is a love struck woman who will stop at doing nothing to find the man she loves. She thinks it’s Pascal‘s character, but it ends up being someone else. I liked her here as this unhinged woman. The second character I’ll mention is Will Arnett as Pascal’s character, brother Andy. They both have musician parents and are musicians themselves, but the Arnett character decides to talk about his father on a podcast instead of playing music. He does some off-screen. He is a bit high-strung and dealing with financial problems. The brothers have a bit of a contentious relationship because of some things the Arnett character did. He was pretty good in the role. Last but not least is Ava Victor, who plays Nadia, a violinist who Pascal’s character has a fling with while they’re working at the Dallas Philharmonic. They truly seem to love each other, but something comes between them, which ends up separating them forever. They do end up having a tie that binds them, which I won’t spoil here. Victor was terrific in a small role, though. I was glad to see her in this.

The title of this film has a double meaning, which makes it fascinating to me. It refers mostly to a piece of music that is being played towards the end of the film, but it also has to do with a massive revelation that the movie gives to the audience. Gilroy does a great job building up to this big moment by showing viewers little things along the way. One scene where Pascal goes to a concert at a dive bar in LA is of particular importance. Having a title with a dual meaning gives the film more gravitas if you will. It makes the two hours I spent watching this film more worthwhile. I think it’s a great thing when a film gives the audience a quality subplot or story element that has stakes to it. This is one of the best of these kinds of story elements I’ve seen all year. This is definitely a best original screenplay contender if I had my druthers next year during awards season. 

“Behemoth!” Is as the title advertised. It’s big in a few different ways. First, the music is grand and amazing. Not being much of a classical music lover, I was blown away by all the big musical keys the film had. Combined with the editing, the music is like a starring character in the movie. It’s that prominent throughout this two hour film. Pascal gives one of the best performances of his career. It’s nuanced and reserved but works for the character he’s playing. He lets the music be the emotional heart of his character.  He has a few moments where I was like, “Here we go. I genuinely could have watched this character go through his life for hours. That’s how interesting he was to me. The supporting cast was excellent as well. The music helped create a big revolution in the movie that is a spoiler if I mention it, but this was the thing that made the whole film work in the end. The script is exceptional by Gilroy as well as his direction. This is by far one of the best films I’ve seen this year. 

🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 stars