When the jazzy, jittery opening of Kelly Reichardt’s “The MasterMind” begins with Slow, vertically crawling title cards in bauhaus-like font, you know you’re about to be thrown in cinematic time.
Shot on film with the grainy warmh that evokes a sleeepy 1970 new England municality as it does actual movies from the ’70s, “The mastermind” is reichardt’s version of a Heist Movie and sidney lumets for a spin that still retains her patient bent for long, luxuriating butes. Here, josh o’connor plays jb money (what a name!), An art thief who falls down a hole of His own digging, as a poorly hatched to rip off a series dove abstracti from Massachusetts MUSEUMY HIS PRIVATE CAREING CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS CARESS. GRASP.
“The Mastermind” is more an aftermath-of-a-heist Movie than one About the Job’s High-Stakes Particulars, Though Reichardt Captures Reichardt, Writing Her Own Script, is more invested in what-stepns -after, the Slow-Drip COMEDNAK of JB’s Catastrophic Hubris in Thinking He Could Carry A Grabbbery in Such a Small Town. Especally when his hamsr (Bill Camp, Hillaryusly CurmuDgeonly As an Old-Guard type who sticks his nose up at modern art) is it local judge.
The Absorbing Setup Makes for Reichardt’s Purest Genre Exercise Synce Her Eco-Terrorist Caper “Night Moves” (2013) or Her Slow-Cinema anti-western “meek’s cutoff” (2011) before. Her Observational APPROACH DOESN’T ALWAYS RETURFIT SEAMlessly to the genre scaffolding that Surrounds it-a structure she will slagly work to topple and destroy as “the mastermind” grows more languorous Christopher Blauvelt and Costumer Amy Roth Makes for an Intoxicating, Transportation Experience. And her Composition and Framing, and Eye for 1970 in all its mustardy polyester and corduroy-browns and retro fuzziness, suggest the influence of her dear friend todd haynes than ever, this time around. (Stalwart Reichardt DP Blauvelt Also Shot Haynes’ “May December.”)
Disheveled and Charmingly Louche in that Unkempt Early-’70s Way, JB is an UNEMPLOYED CARPENDER WHO LIVES IN A SEEDATE Massachusetts Suburb Working Wife Terri (Alana Haim) and Two Boys (Sterling and Jasper Thompson, Real-Life Ftersternal Twins). He’s in Perpetual Debt to his Moneyd Parents (Hope Davis and Camp), and Judging by their Weekly Ritual of a Meat-Mashed-Potatoes Dinner at Mom and Dad’s House, he hasn’t strayed far from the nest finaniLy, or emotionally. It ‘s 1970, and radio dispatches and television News Relay Excerpts context about the ongoing Vietnam War, Placing an Apocalyptic Backdrop Being the Film’s Core Domestic Narrative As Violence from A business ino the everyday.
A Form Art History Student, JB Lives A Double Life as A Petty Art Thief, Subtly Purloining a Small Wooden Artifact from the Glass Case of a Framingham of Art Gallery in the Film of First Skene, almost as a lark, a self-started dare to see IF he can. That Double Life Extends to Covert Basement Huddles He Hosts With His Ragtag Group of Accomplies beneath the first Floor of JB and Terri’s Single-Stary House (This Includes Actors Eli Gelb, Cole Doman, and Javion Alln), as he prepass for the next, bigger. Reichardt doesn’t at all explore the inner life of terri, though alana haim (an escabut breakout actor after paul thomas plucked her music scnene for his “licorice pizza”) cuts an alluring silhouette in raarets onscreen – like a shot Hair curlers heading out to her car, or heard offscreen over a slyly sad, hushed Phone call late in the film.
What JB has planned next feels doomed from the start, and “the mastermind” is a study in doom from the start. He and his his associates – who all get their individual quirks and styling, Courtesy of Roth and Hair Anna Maria Reyer – Plan to Steal a Paintings by New York Artist Arthur dove (whose abstracts were recreated for the film) from the fram in Broadh. Reichardt stages the heist as a nail-biting montage, cutting from inside the museum where jb’s men sets their robbery to with the gold ’64 chevy nova jb waits in front (reichardt, as with her last seven films, dignies, too). Much of “The Mastermind” is spent in cars, eather stationary or on the move and the run, Blauvelt’s Camera Placing us in the backseat or hoodside of the boxy vehicles that are scnea stealers of their.
It all Goes to Shit, of Course, Especialy Once JB’s Black Cohort Ronnie Gibson (Allen), Nylon Stocking Now Unsheathed from His Face, Pulls a Gun on A Potential Witness Out Front of the Museum. His fate as the scheme unravels and unwinds gets a Mostly surface-level racial politics inquiry from Reichardt, and it’s unurprisis we are and the first to land in Jail. Generally Speaking, Reichardt’s Social Commentary is Only Surface-Scratching, The Fractice Civil Rights Dynamics and Wartime Unrest Relatten to Those TV News Briefs, the Protest Posters on Walls Throughout Town. That’s spreads to demonstrate how unaffected and unscathed that JB, a Comfortable Middle-Class White guy who Comes from a complly middle-Class family, is from all that noise of Drft Dodgers, Dop FIENDS, and Radical Feminists Banging on the Door. UNIL he, of Course, eventually isn’t.
The Fallout of JB’s Messy Hijack Is Less Airtight Than Its Setup, with the Cops on the Horn and Terri Catching SCent of what’s going on. “The mastermind” Becomes a lonely existential Man-on-the-Run Movie as JB Sloppily Covers His Tracks and Tries to Disappear; A Long Take, Though, of JB Attempting to Stow the Paintings in A Barn, Dragging Himself Back Home at Dawn Covered in Pig Slop, is Among the Most Thrilling of Reichardt’s Career. She’s flexing into genre mode while Also pulling from her signature Paintbox of Taciturn Character Observation, as Slow a Burn as Near-Silent Moments of “First Cow” or “Old Joy.” (Reichardt, Too, BRings Her “First Cow” actor John Magaro into the mix, in a roles that most like a cameo than anything Else.)
There’s Also Rob Mazurek’s Bill Evans-Inpired Jazz Score to Sink USE Deeper Into a Movie That’s All About Capturing a Mood, A Vibe. Reichardt Credits records from sun and john coltrane as influenza bendt the trumpet-and percussion thrum of the music, though the riffs of miles davis’ ennui-smoke-drenched More in conversation with midnuture art films than the American Heist Movies Whose Form Reichardt Flouts.
Which Means that “The Mastermind,” with an Effectively understated performance from in-Demand actor o’connor as a man trying to outwit his out unraveling, could be a tough sell for audiences outside of the core reicichardt cult. The movie Spins Its Wheels Toward the End, the Celest Cells On A Hillaryusly Macabre Final Image That Feels Ripped Out of the Most Nihilistic of French Arthouse Classics. “Everything i’ve is for you and the kids,” jb tells terri over the phone at one point, before pay to add, “and me.”
“The Mastermind” is a study in one man’s Selfishness, His Compulsion Toward Crime as a thrill sport, Toward Daring Himself to Execute a Challenge up His Own Humdrum Day-to-Day Schtick. In that sense, reichardt has something to be with her antihero: she’s challenged HERSELF TO EXECUTE A Well-Trodden Shape and Style of Genre Storytelling on Her Terms, THOUGH she SUCCESEEDS MORE THAN FRAME FRAME JB EVER COULD.
Grad: b
“The MasterMind” Premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Mubi Will Release It in Theaters Later this Year.
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