In Behemoth!, which had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on Friday, October 2, Pedro Pascal plays a cellist who forces his way into a studio job that, according to his agent, was intended for women.
“Fuck that,” Pascal’s character responds. His agent gets him the job.
The character has a valid, non-sexist reason for pursuing the position — one the film eventually explains — but his casual use of male privilege at the expense of an apparent woman cellist is still striking. That’s because Behemoth!, despite its beautiful music and attentive detail, repeatedly pushes its women to the margins.
Written and directed by Tony Gilroy, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind the 2007 legal thriller Michael Clayton and the creator and showrunner of the acclaimed Star Wars series Andor, Behemoth! stars Pascal as Alex Serian. Alex is a celebrated cellist who returns to his hometown of Los Angeles to care for his sick mother — or at least, that’s the explanation he gives. After years of performing with orchestras across the country, he accepts the less prestigious work of playing on Hollywood film scores.
Gilroy builds the film as a puzzle, moving between different years and locations through understated visual clues instead of on-screen labels. A snowstorm signals Chicago, palm trees place us in Los Angeles, and a Hillary Clinton yard sign identifies 2016. It takes time to understand who Alex really is. Pieces of his past gradually emerge in the present, yet even after his desires become clear, his deeper needs remain elusive.
Alex is a brilliant cellist — and a habitual womanizer. His former girlfriend Carol, played by a severely underused Olivia Wilde, stalks him. That omission feels particularly glaring given the early Oscar buzz surrounding Wilde’s standout performance in The Invite. In a flashback set in Chicago, Carol pursues Alex through a gorgeous silk dress and dramatic raccoon-style eyeliner, her sleek hair swaying as she moves, while he slips out through the back of an auditorium. She later appears at his home in the middle of the night, screaming profanities at the neighbors, alternating between promises to leave her husband for Alex and accusations that he is a pathetic loser. During a furious snowstorm, she screams “ALEX!” at the top of her lungs as he escapes in a taxi.
Wilde makes the most of the role and delivers some of the screening’s biggest laughs. I laughed with everyone else, still hoping until the closing credits that Gilroy would give Carol something beyond the familiar “crazy ex-girlfriend” stereotype. He never does. By the time Will Arnett, playing Alex’s less talented musician brother, delivers the final Carol joke with comic gusto, the material no longer felt funny.
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Eva Victor, who won an upset Best Actress Golden Globe last year for their directorial debut Sorry, Baby, in which they also starred, fares little better. Victor appears in only three brief scenes as Nadia, a violinist and another of Alex’s exes. As in Sorry, Baby, Victor is warm, funny and instantly relatable, while also sharp, caustic and unsparing. Nadia tells Alex that he loves “crazy” because “crazy makes it easy for you. You’re off the hook, you’re blameless.”
It’s a compelling insight that could have led to genuine character development — or to a revealing decision not to change. The film never follows through. Without giving away why, it’s enough to say that Nadia, like Carol, ultimately becomes another sexist cliché.
Pascal finds a way to draw audiences into Alex’s mystery. The actor’s cello playing, which appears effortless to my eyes, is impressive, but some of his strongest scenes require neither dialogue nor performance on the instrument. He simply listens and reacts as music moves through him. In one of the film’s most affecting sequences, Pascal’s eyes fill with fascination, wonder and disbelief as a six-year-old piano prodigy performs a song she wrote for her late mother.
The non-linear structure of Behemoth! is often captivating, especially when its score moves between diegetic and non-diegetic sound. At one point, the film cuts to Alex in a Los Angeles studio recording the same song that is unfolding within a flashback. Gilroy collaborated with nine different composers — James Newton Howard, Alan Silvestri, Michael Abels, Emily Bear, Lukas Frank, Michael Giacchino, Henry Jackman and Nami Melumad — giving the film a broad range of musical styles rather than a single defining sound. As a celebration of orchestral music in all its forms, the approach works remarkably well.
There is plenty to admire in Behemoth! for viewers willing to overlook the way it fails both Wilde and Victor. The film is visually striking and sounds wonderful. Ultimately, however, it is a character study that never gives us a sufficiently clear understanding of the man at its center. For me, those pleasures aren’t enough to excuse its shortcomings.
Behemoth! will be released in limited theaters beginning Friday, December 4, 2026.