‘The Mastermind:’ Kelly Reichardt’s Latest Stars Josh O’Connor as a Rumpled Thief on the Run From Himself
Kelly Reichardt is not known to capitalize on star power, but one can make the case that she is integral to the primacy of several of American cinema’s most gifted screen actors.
She has cast Michelle Williams as her leading lady four times to date, first in 2008’s “Wendy and Lucy,” two years after Williams’ Academy Award–nominated turn in “Brokeback Mountain.” She gave John Magaro — a journeyman character actor, if ever there was one — the first leading role of his career in 2019’s “First Cow,” and one can wonder whether Magaro would have gotten an opportunity like 2023’s “Past Lives” if not for that film. Reichardt also all but discovered Lily Gladstone, with her breakout role in 2016’s “Certain Woman,” where she not only holds her own against scene partner Kristen Stewart, but manages to run away (or perhaps ride on horseback) with the entire film.
With the casting of Josh O’Connor, Reichardt’s latest feature film “The Mastermind” is once again catching a true original in the midst of their ascendancy; the difference lies in O’Connor’s budding movie stardom, already well underway.
The film takes place in 1970 and is set in Framingham, Massachusetts. It follows James Blaine “J.B.” Mooney (O’Connor), an aimless carpenter; his wife Terri (Alana Haim) and two sons, Tommy (Jasper Thompson) and Carl (Sterling Thompson), all living with J.B’s mother and father (Hope Davis and Bill Camp). J.B. decides to give his humdrum life a jumpstart by enlisting a trio of dullard friends (Eli Gelb, Cole Doleman and Javion Allen) to rob the Framingham Art Museum — a sleepy (the security guard is literally slumped over) local establishment home to a modest collection of second-rate abstract art, frequented by elderly couples and schoolchildren filling out homework assignments.
O’Connor, already Emmy-minted and having attained heartthrob status for his turn as dirtbag tennis pro Patrick Zweig in “Challengers” last year, leads this film with a soporific restlessness. Though he slots in just fine to Reichardt’s brand of neorealist Americana, he is without question the most famous — or at least the most so-hot-right-now — face she has ever framed. Any disconnect that this casting could possibly engender is offset by how elegantly O’Connor lives in the period. His performance here is reminiscent of some of the more, say, off-kilter stars of that great cinematic decade: Warren Oates, Elliott Gould, or Peter Fonda. It’s the classic alchemy that defines so many indelible screen presences, that of a character actor in a leading man’s body.
Reichardt’s films are often about people on the fringes of American society. Her characters typically seek security and stability, assurance that their professional lives are worthwhile, or just simple human connection. J.B. is a conglomerate of these types, but distinct in his own way. Reichardt sets the film in the midst of student-led protests against the Vietnam War, a time when ideologies amongst young people were nothing short of absolute. J.B., graduate educated and comfortably middle class, doesn’t have much of a political point of view.
As in many of her films, Reichardt fills the periphery of this movie with small signifiers of their national moment; a political discussion on talk radio is quickly changed over to a hippie-dippy pop music station; J.B. wistfully glimpses Walter Cronkite, seemingly reporting on the civil war in Cambodia, on a neighbor’s TV. To these things he pays no attention — in the case of the latter, he literally blocks it out and goes to sleep. He’s a strong counterpoint to Reichardt’s trio of committed leftist eco-terrorists at the center of “Night Moves” (2013), intent on blowing up a dam, on their last nerve and blinded to any alternative.
Reichardt’s protagonists always have a reason to be truly desperate. The idea to pull off the heist occurs to J.B. casually, and if he is driven by any kind of desperation, it’s existential. He’s bored, perhaps, with staying put in a passionless life. One of his co-conspirators, Ronnie Gibson (Allen), brings a gun along with him, clearly thrilled at the idea of a walk on the wild side of the law. He uses his gun to keep quiet a witness to their heist, a decision that saves them from getting caught, but significantly raises their profile. J.B. objects to Ronnie using his gun, but not too strongly, and later admires his conquests — four paintings by American artist Arthur Dove — laid out in his living room. He even puts one of the paintings up on his wall, content with reaping the rewards of somebody else’s reckless violence.
The second half of the film depicts J.B.’s life in freefall, though he remains casually aloof. When questioned by his old grad school chum Maude (Gaby Hoffmann) about his scheme, he scoffs at her suggestion that he aims to sell the paintings using their thesis advisor as a middleman, but doesn’t offer any kind of truth in response. When she asserts he went for the Dove paintings because they hung in said professor’s office, he’s bemused, but he doesn’t refute the notion. Maybe that is why he was drawn to them after all, it just hadn’t occurred to him until now. J.B. is now undeniably a criminal, whether he really set out to be or not, but this mastermind still can’t work out why he did it — not really.
He is not so much on the run as in search of a motive for the life he’s found himself in. He leans on old acquaintances for cash and a couch to crash on until he runs out of options, falling face-first into the real world he’s been avoiding. Maybe he wanted to make something of himself, to get his name in the papers. Maybe he wanted a way out of his life, to be catapulted into the annals of history. Maybe he wanted something beautiful, all to himself; or maybe he just really liked those paintings. These are the questions that Reichardt ponders with this film, but like any great filmmaker, she lets the audience fill in the blanks.
“The Mastermind” is now playing in theaters via Mubi.
Regions: Boston