mastermind movie review
Cast: Josh O’Connor, Alana Haim, John Magaro, Gaby Hoffmann, Hope Davis, Bill Camp
Director: Kelly Reichardt
Star Rating: ★★★.5
Time moves in the subtlest ways in Kelly Reichardt’s films. One of the foremost American filmmakers of this era, his films possess a hard-hitting and tender observational style that never shocks us with the action, but rather with the lack of it. There is nothing Hollywood about it. You look carefully. From ‘Wendy and Lucy’ to ‘First Cow’, his concise character studies are evocative of a specific setting without shouting too loudly.
Base
In The Mastermind, which first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, Reichardt has managed to retain all the qualities that have made his work so engaging, even though it is certainly the most narratively driven of his work. She sets the frame to 1970s Massachusetts to tell the story of the robbery. It’s a genre done to death by Hollywood, but in Reichardt’s confident and patient hands, it turns a genre inside out and establishes a portrait of a rebel without a cause in the leading man. He is anything but a leading man, as we see how things change. His name is James Blaine Mooney, played brilliantly by Josh O’Connor.
From the very first scene, Reichardt sets the tone. James steals a small artwork from the art gallery as his two talkative sons, Carl (Sterling Thompson) and Tommy (Jasper Thompson) wander around and talk incessantly. His wife, Terri (why wasn’t Alana Hamm given something to do here?), is cautious but manages to get along. Perhaps she has given up the idea that her husband is ready to do anything good. The problem is that James doesn’t think so, because he has many things planned in advance. With the help of local gangsters, he pulls off the theft of a quartet of paintings from the (fictitious) Framingham Museum of Art.
what works
Collaborating again with Jonathan Raymond, Reichardt tells this story in his characteristic unassuming voice. The color palette is cool and full of daylight, even as the suspicious events of a robbery proceed with the calmness of a chamber drama. Rob Mazurek’s score is quite transformative; The recurring jazz elements serve as a shock to the seriousness of it all. Keep in mind, this was the era before cameras and 24/7 surveillance, so just put on a silly face mask and go! James fails spectacularly, and the camera follows him as he attempts to work on the run. Josh captures the frame with strong awkwardness that enlivens many scenes. After all he’s just a man-child and has never had to face the consequences of his actions. Unless he is forced to.
Reichardt, a master filmmaker of cool wit, takes the journey of one man to paint the entire tapestry of a specific historical moment in all its socio-political struggles. Narcissism in James does not make him different from the rest; It cannot survive the turmoil in deadlines, institutions, and sit-ins of anti-war demonstrations, because dissent occurs in the same breath of its existence. He has his limits. Mastermind is a political film in the most realistic, entertaining way possible, intent on keeping its protagonist – and by extension, the audience – on edge. No one can run away.