The Mastermind -- Kelly Reichardt's latest

[GreatGazoo]

Writer Director Kelly Reichardt is known for her minimalist films closely associated with slow cinema, many of which deal with working-class characters in small, rural communities. In her latest film, THE MASTERMIND, Josh O'Connor ('The Crown'/Netflix) plays a failed architect / family man in 1970 who slides into stealing art and ruins his life.

Like the Springsteen film, Deliver Me From Nowhere, this one centers on a 30YO male having a crisis in his life and career and who becomes increasingly isolated. Reichardt has a very confident style and it shows up in her unrushed pace and quiet scenes. O'Connor, like Jeremy Allen White, has to carry a film that is about his character's descent. He has to emote enough to let us in but not so much that it feels forced or melodramatic. O'Connor has more to work with because, unlike Bruce, his character's desperation escalates in distinct steps.

Mastermind reminded me of the Coens' "Fargo" in terms of pace and plot but with nothing played for laughs. Almost everything that Deliver Me From Nowhere gets wrong, Reichardt gets right -- the tone, the pace, the feel of authenticity and key to it all: emotional truth. Mastermind is immersive and holds you because he feels like a real person really going through a series of bad choices and we empathize with his wife, children and his mother.

I'm still pondering the socio-political aspects of an upper middle class man abusing his safety net and paying blue collar types to steal art from a public institution. Reichardt leaves nothing to chance. The stolen art is specified as having been created by Arthur Dove so I need to know more about him and his work.

[GreatGazoo]

1. Reichardt related in a press conference that a Bard student

committed a very similar crime at the same time she was shooting her film and he was "not expelled because" it's Bard.

Mastermind opened on 10/17 -- the Louvre was robbed on 10/19. How timely.