Viewed on that scale, “Behemoth!,” Tony Gilroy’s drama about a professional cellist, played with perky mystery by Pedro Pascal, scores on the level of authenticity. Pascal’s character, a renowned musician named Alex Serian, has been a member of various world-class symphony orchestras, notably in Chicago, but the film presents us with a more plugged-in contempo angle on this kind of career. In the new era, orchestras are foundering, the pay isn’t what it used to be, and even a virtuoso string musician might need a side gig or two. For Alex, that has meant playing in orchestras that are assembled to record movie scores — a major industry, and one that “Behemoth!” depicts as being nearly as high maintenance as the prestige symphony circuit.
The conductors who oversee the recording of the movie scores are portrayed as hyper-demanding corporate perfectionists. (One of them, a prima donna played by Thomas Kretschmann, makes it feel like you’re seeing Klaus Kinski going to work for Skydance.) And from the film’s opening scene, which immerses us in the lingo of rehearsal, which is a mixture of old-school classical Euro directives (“pianissimo”) and Hollywood jargon (“new ink”), we’re right there in the cavernous recording studio, feeling the heat and the nuance.
