The Mountain is a 2018 film directed by Rick Alverson, a psychological drama starring Tye Sheridan and Jeff Goldblum. Denis Lavant and Udo Kier also star.
Andy (Sheridan) is a withdrawn, taciturn young man, left alone in the world after his mother is institutionalized and his domineering father (Kier) dies suddenly. A change in direction comes when the charismatic Dr. Wallace Fiennes (Goldblum) arrives at his garage sale. Dr. Fiennes, who treated Andy's mother, is a traveling doctor in need of an assistant and a photographer, and Andy follows along. As the two travel the country, it becomes clear that Dr. Fiennes is a lobotomist, practicing a dangerous procedure that shreds the frontal lobe of mentally ill patients, rendering them dull and compliant. The procedure is quickly going out of style, and Dr. Fiennes wants to get as many done as he can...
This film provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Andy's father is implied to be this: he's cold and dismissive to Andy at the breakfast table, and his domineering personality seems to have played a big part in making Andy the sad sack he is.
- The Alcoholic: Dr. Fiennes spends much of his down time swilling cocktails.
- Ambiguously Evil: Is Dr. Fiennes a well-intentioned doctor who deludes himself into ignoring the harm he's doing? Is he a callous, cynical con man trying to keep the gravy train rolling? How much guilt, if any, does he feel about his practice? The film doesn't provide many straight answers.
- Ascetic Aesthetic: A rare example on the gritty end of the Sliding Scale of Shiny Versus Gritty. The production design is purposefully drab to capture the banality of its setting, with plenty of anonymous white-walled hospitals and beige living rooms.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Lobotomies, while increasingly frowned upon at the time the movie is set, were still practiced with alarming regularity. And, as in real life, the majority of the patients here are women who may or may not have actually needed a lobotomy.
- Emotionless Boy: Andy is a blank, passive cipher of a person, with a stony face and a voice that rarely rises above a mumble. Once he's lobotomized, it's hard to detect much change in his behavior.
- End of an Era: The lobotomy is clearly on its way out, and within a decade will be almost entirely discredited; Dr. Fiennes won't be able to make a living as a lobotomist for much longer. Unlike most uses of this trope, this is clearly a good thing.
- Gibbering Genius: Zig-zagged with Dr. Fiennes, surprisingly enough, considering who plays him. Much of the time, he speaks in a very even, almost soothing manner, appropriate for a doctor. When he's off the clock and hitting on women, he speaks much more quickly and freely, with all the "mmm"s and "aaah"s one would expect. It's unclear whether this is his true self, or if his drinking habit brings it out of him.
- Lack of Empathy: Downplayed. Dr. Fiennes is capable of empathy—it's implied that he hires Andy out of guilt over lobotomizing his mother—but he compartmentalizes to the point where he's disconnected from his patients. When a patient accidentally dies during her lobotomy, Fiennes is more frustrated than upset, ordering her to be taken off the gurney and for a new patient to come in.
- Large Ham: Jeff Goldblum is his usual animated self as Dr. Fiennes, but Denis Lavant outdoes him as Jack, who is prone to deranged, profane monologues shouted at the top of his lungs.
- Lobotomy: What Dr. Fiennes does.
- Missing Mom: Andy's mother was institutionalized (and lobotomized) well before the events of the film.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Dr. Wallace Fiennes is clearly supposed to represent Dr. Walter Freeman, who also traveled the United States performing cheap lobotomies (including the one that infamously handicapped Rosemary Kennedy.)
- Perpetual Frowner: Andy never smiles.
- Prefers Going Barefoot: Unless he absolutely has to wear shoes (in an office building, for instance,) Jack goes barefoot.
