THE MASTERMIND
Quiet. Mirrors. The unraveling.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, it is safe to say that a Kelly Reichardt film owes us an encyclopedia’s worth of words. One of our masters of the medium, she has such a stranglehold on her artistic voice. In the long, still, and quiet moments of her work, we can’t help but gaze - mouth agape - at the spectacle she can create with so little. After a 12 year gap from her debut feature River of Grass to the 2006 followup Old Joy, we’ve been fortunate enough to have a new film from her every three years. Her latest, The Mastermind, is another screaming example of why she is the best at what she does. A melancholy, ‘70’s art-heist film with a moody backdrop and a slow-burn metaphorical unraveling of a leading man (Josh O’Connor) who is simply in too deep. I got wind that this was going to be the AMC Screen Unseen film on October 13th, so I had to go. What one reddit bonehead joyously describes as “the most boring, uninteresting and unintelligent movie of all time” is a timely, honest, beautiful, and heartbreaking film that I will champion tirelessly.
The beautiful thing about art, in the most simple of terms, is how we receive it. I’m potentially saying the most cliche thing here, but I don’t care. When you break it down to something a bit more black and white, there are fast films and there are slow films. Given something at an accelerated rate forces us to digest it later on. If we see a film like Uncut Gems, we’re on a highway of beats that we might not fully taste until an hour after we got home from the cinema. The Mastermind is the opposite of this, and true to her form, Kelly Reichardt gives us all the time in the world to live in the moment with the story as it unfolds in front of us. Some look at the slow pacing of a film and use it as harsh criticism. I think there’s an interesting mirror to this type of reception of art and how often as humans we don’t like to be left in silence to interpret our emotions as they are coming unraveled.
Taste is taste, and I’m not here to debate that - nor am I here to dispute an opinion that is derived from it. Human beings are complicated and stressful enough just as they are, and some don’t desire meditation. Bluntly, this film is meditation. We have curated a life of access. Access to distractions, access to joys, access to stimulation. When the idea of us is stripped away, what do we do with our high-wired brain that has no off switch? These films that Kelly Reichardt makes have a way of giving us the opportunity to have a telekinetic relationship to a circumstance beyond our own. The Mastermind doesn’t spoon-feed us what we are supposed to feel. Constantly you hear things about art in this medium being taken down a peg for audiences, but the ethereal we are much smarter than that. As the world around James Blaine Mooney (who I can’t stress enough, Josh O’Connor puts on a masterclass in acting as always. Pair this with La Chimera and thank me later) unravels, we feel it. For every raw moment, we feel life happening. In our own lives we take this sensation for granted. Kelly Reichardt gives us an opportunity to breathe.
Jessica Kiang for Variety describes this film as an “investigation into the fabric of ordinariness and what happens when it frays.” An absolutely brilliant dissection. Over-convolution isn’t equivalent to exhilaration. Plot isn’t dependent on extremes. Thrill doesn’t require intensity. We don’t have to riddle our stories with explosives just to get the reaction we want - how we pace our stories is the key. What separates a good storyteller from an annoying rambler at a house-party is their pacing. If the annoying rambler’s story has all the bells and whistles, but doesn’t allow you to absorb, and really feel the rhythm of it, you don’t care to stick around for the sting. When someone like Kelly Reichardt has something to say, it’s imperative for you to sit, listen, and reap the benefits in the end of it all.
Dylan, THANK YOU for this! I don't think I would have given this film or Kelly Reichardt any consideration if I hadn't read your review. I was saying to Mike (my hubby) that I'm SO tired of films that are just the equivalent of junk food. There's no character development or meaning to them. Just disturbing visuals like fight scenes and things blowing up and people killing people without any emotional hangover afterwards. This film sounds like just what I and my spirit been yearning for! It's not streaming yet, but once it is, I look forward to watching it. In the meantime, I'll check out Kelly's other films. Thanks again, young man.