I’m a sucker for a movie that takes place in the 1970s. There is something about the 70s aesthetic that is right up my alley. Throw in the setting of Framingham,  Massachusetts, and now you have me very intrigued. The Mastermind, not The Master from PTA film starring Joaquin Phoenix or the animated film voiced by Will Farrell, the latest film from auteur director Kelly Reichardt, is that movie. It’s a heist picture like I’ve never seen before, and that’s a good thing because it’s good to be different from other movies in the same genre. Hopefully, audiences like it. 

JB Mooney (Josh O’Connor, The History of Sound) is an unemployed carpenter in Framingham, Massachusetts. He is married to Terri (Alana Haim, Licorice Pizza), and they have two kids. He has a father who overshadows him and makes him less than. One day, while visiting a local museum with his family, he gets an idea to rob the museum. He plans a Heist of a handful of paintings. The heist doesn’t necessarily go off as expected, but that’s not the main part of the story. It’s more about what happened after the heist than the actual heist.

O’Connor has been doing some good things ever since his award winning performance in The Crown as the younger Prince Charles, now King Charles. Challengers,  The History of Sound, and LA Chimera have all garnered critical buzz. He has gotten chances to work with other indie directors because of his past work in that streaming show. It shows when he’s been given more opportunities. His role in this film is a bit quiet, but he is better in these types of films. He is so good in the quieter moments where there isn’t any dialogue. He uses his face to show his emotions. He didn’t have to say much to know how he was thinking in this role. The other actor gets across some of the difficulties in this man’s life regarding his financial struggles.

The charm of Reichardt’s movies are the more somber moments. She is able to capture a lot on screen while not having a lot of dialogue. Her characters say a lot without actually speaking. Hand gestures and facial reactions say a lot in her films. We, as an audience, get more out of that than the dialogue sometimes.Phone calls are used in this film to get a lot of emotion. The intonation of voices on the other end of the phone or nothing on the other end is enough to garner an emotional response by the viewers watching her films. This one is no different than the others I’ve seen, like First Cow, Showing Up, or Meeks Cutoff. She is a masterful director when she’s using as little dialogue as possible.That is not an easy task to master in directing. 

The cast in this film is pretty small, similar to Reichardt’s other movies, but there are a few cast members that stood out to me in smaller roles besides the lead O’Connor. Bill Camp is always good, and he is a tough father figure in this picture. On the other hand, Hope Davis is a sympathetic mother who wants to genuinely help her son get his act together. John Magaro, a frequent Reichardt collaborator, has a role as a close friend of the O’Conner character, Fred, he’s a good guy who only wants the best for his friend. Gaby Hoffman and Alana Haim play the other women in the story, and they don’t trust the O’Conner character as far as they can throw him. This was a nice supporting cast that  Reichardt assembled to compliment the lead character O’Conner plays.

The Mastermind  has a bit of a road trip aspect to it that I liked. The O’Connor character is on the run from the authorities and some gangsters. He trusted the wrong people, and that got him in some deep water. He uses all the tools he has to go from place to place. Borrowing, stealing, or just asking for money to get around to avoid capture from the law. His face is plastered on the news and on the front page of newspapers.The decade of the 70s plays into how easy it is for him to escape custody for so long. That aesthetic was used so well in this picture. I loved the way the film was shot and all the technical things that came with that regarding the costumes, makeup, and hairstyling and production design.This felt like a true period piece. O’Conner is a star to watch with a couple of other films coming out this year. He is going to be one people will be talking about in the awards season. Maybe not for this role, but it doesn’t matter because he was pretty good anyway. 

3 stars

Dan Skip Allen