Kelly Reichardt | Film »Mastermind«: The Genius as a Gatekeeper

Kelly Reichardt always approaches film genres from an unusual perspective and deliberately breaks with established conventions. In "Old Joy," she explored new aspects of the buddy movie, and in "Wendy and Lucy," the story of a homeless woman, she diversified the road movie genre. In "Meek's Cutoff" and "First Cow," the independent director once again delightfully deconstructed classic Western motifs, always in her signature minimalist, keenly observed style. It was therefore exciting to see what facets the auteur would unpack the heist movie genre in "The Mastermind." The film premiered—as did her 2022 comedy "Showing Up"—at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

The setting is a sleepy Massachusetts suburb, meticulously recreated in the 1970s. Regular cinematographer Christopher Blauvelt captures the scenery magnificently in grainy images reminiscent of photographs by Stephen Shore or Wim Wenders' film "The American Friend": Big American cars dominate the streets, and the clothing and interiors give the impression that the film was actually shot in 1970. The Vietnam War is raging, the news is full of it, and protests are taking place everywhere.

Big American cars dominate the streets, and the clothing and interiors give the impression that the film was actually shot in 1970.

The tense atmosphere also extends to the audience, but apparently not to the egotistical art school dropout and unemployed carpenter JB Mooney—brilliantly portrayed by Josh O'Connor, who recently shone in Luca Guadagnino's "Challengers" and Alice Rohrwacher's "La Chimera." The son of a respected judge, who still relentlessly supports his wealthy parents, has other plans that completely absorb him. JB is planning a seemingly foolproof coup: Together with two acquaintances, he intends to steal four abstract paintings by the modernist Arthur Dove from the local art museum.

While visiting the Framingham Art Museum with his twin sons and his wife Terri (Alana Haim, who unfortunately gets too little screen time), the unscrupulous good-for-nothing steals a small artifact from the display case and smuggles it into his wife's handbag, thus involuntarily turning her into a thief.

During the entirely unglamorous theft of the paintings—during opening hours—a lot goes wrong: On the day of the robbery, JB is supposed to be babysitting her twin sons; two schoolgirls discover the would-be crooks masked in nylon tights, and they only manage to escape because one of their accomplices is illegally carrying a weapon.

Reichardt contrasts the myth of the "perfect robbery" with the incompetence of the would-be crooks, which gives the scene its bittersweet appeal. What a wonderful contrast to classic heist movies like the Ocean's Adventures series!

Rob Mazurek also underscores this wonderfully edited scene – Reichhardt has been editing her own films for many years – with exciting jazz scores, which, together with the consistently quiet humor, compensate for the fact that the film loses too much of its pace afterward.

As in Reichardt's eco-terrorism thriller "Night Moves," where the attack takes place right at the beginning, the director is less interested in the act itself than in its consequences. Here, however, the audience's patience is occasionally overstretched: Reichardt's trademark long takes occasionally bore, but perhaps it's simply JB Mooney's inflexibility and foolishness that eventually become almost unbearable.

Another highlight, however, is a scene in which JB hides the stolen paintings in a pigsty with incredible clumsiness – and is already awaited at home by two caricature-like police officers.

Ultimately, JB's only option is to escape on an unspectacular Greyhound bus. He finds temporary refuge with his former classmate in the countryside, amusingly played by "First Cow" lead John Magaro. But his wife, Maude (regular Gaby Hoffmann), soon becomes fed up with the immature man who only causes trouble for everyone around him and throws him out.

Reichardt not only shows that the robberies often portrayed as glamorous in the cinema are, in reality, quite chaotic undertakings. En passant, she also exposes the incredible hubris of a man who considers himself a "mastermind" and is thwarted by his own foolishness. In times of pervasive arrogance in politics and society, this seems particularly liberating. Until the very end, JB refuses any form of self-awareness. "I don't think you've thought this through," a more experienced crook once tells him.

Kelly Reichardt, on the other hand, once again succeeds in creating a precisely thought-out film that questions the heist genre with subtle humor and shows us that most crimes are based on hubris and foolishness rather than ingenious planning.

"Mastermind," USA 2025. Directed by Kelly Reichardt. Starring Gaby Hoffmann, Hope Davis, and Bill Camp. 110 minutes. Release date: October 16.