Kelly Reichardt tells an unexpected insight into art thefts in “Mastermind”

Doesn’t spend much time on Mastermindof Kelly Reichardta very different art heist film, so that the irony of the title becomes painfully clear. The movie starring Josh O’Connor which premiered this week in Argentine cinemas and will then be seen on the Mubi platform starting in November, contains this paradox within itself.

Because whatever else can be said about JB Mooney, the mediocre art thief played by O’Connor with a kind of anti-heroic and taciturn energy, it is obvious what cannot be said. This former art student, now a family man and unemployed carpenter, is the furthest thing from a “criminal mastermind.” He is neither cunning, quick-thinking, nor level-headed: qualities one would consider essential for planning a robbery.

But, as we said, Mastermind is far from your average heist movie. Normally, a film heist is spectacular, whether because of its success or its failure. Kelly Reichardt has eliminated the entire spectacle, telling instead the melancholic story of a man who makes a silly mistake and little by little loses everything, like a fall down a mountain in slow motion.

“Slow” is the key term here. Reichardt takes his time with each shot, without any rush, as he constructs this carefully observed portrait of life in Massachusetts in the early 1970s, tinted in earth tones and perfectly period costumes. It was a time when the now ubiquitous surveillance cameras didn’t exist to catch any poor soul who decided to do something strange: send some guys to steal paintings from a gallery, in broad daylight, and wait right outside in the car, like a parent at the school pick-up.

We first meet JB at the fictional Framingham Museum (Reichardt he bases his story very loosely on a 1972 robbery elsewhere in Massachusetts), where he has taken his wife Terri (Alana Haim) and his two children out for a walk. As the family wanders, JB surreptitiously steals a figurine from a display case, while the security guard sleeps: an early test of the security system.

Later, his father—a stern local judge (Bill Camp, perfectly cast)—wonders aloud why his son is failing in the workplace. He says he has something good coming up, and later he’ll ask his more understanding mother for funds (Hope Davis), to finance the project. What’s delicious about this dinner scene is the time Reichardt spends illustrating a bland ’70s family meal: steak and mashed potatoes, peas, corn, biscuits and butter.

It turns out this man is up to something nefarious, right in his basement. The plan is simple: steal four paintings—not by the great masters, but works by Arthur Dovea painter that JB studied in school—. At a meeting at home, he gives his untrained thieves their costume: a pair of pantyhose each to wear on their heads.

On the day of the robbery, problems arise. Pretending to drop the kids off at school, JB finds it closed for the day. What are you going to do with them? You can tell it’s the ’70s when he leaves the little ones at a shopping center with some money for junk food, telling them to return to the parking lot in a few hours.

The crime itself is remarkably… unremarkable. The director’s observational, almost documentary style is at its best here. Accomplices with pantyhose on their heads take the loot without a blaring soundtrack or fast-paced chases to raise the energy. After one goes off the plan and threatens a teenage girl with a gun—there weren’t supposed to be guns, but he didn’t listen—they run down a staircase, punch the security guard, and jump into the car.

And then the problems—and the movie—truly begin. We realize that the story is not about the theft itself, but about the spiraling consequences of the unwise decisions of a man and his astonishing lack of self-awareness. Have you even thought about how to sell the works? The paintings may not even be valuable, his father reflects at dinner, unaware of his son’s involvement. The thief hides the works in a dirty barn silo somewhere. But what after? Well, it’s not long before someone speaks.

Soon, he is on the run. To his surprise, no one really wants to see him—not his furious wife, not his friends. He does receive a visit from some annoying local gangsters. (“Are you cops?” he asks.) As his money runs out, his options diminish dramatically. And also his neurons; It never occurs to him to change his hairstyle or even shave his beard. Somehow, O’Connor manages to maintain a small—small, but crucial—dose of our sympathy.

The supporting cast is perfectly cast, but it’s a shame Haim doesn’t have more involvement; her most moving scene is on the other end of a phone line, when her husband surprisingly apologizes for ruining the family but at the same time asks her to send him money.

Reichardt reminds us at several moments that his film is set in the midst of intense social unrest over the Vietnam War, including vivid street protests. But the truth is that social context means nothing. In the unique interpretation of Josh O’Connor As a depressing and mediocre man, our artless thief seems to care about nothing but survival.

But even there he doesn’t seem very committed, making careless decisions, the last of which leads to the film’s abrupt—but, in retrospect, satisfying—denouement. And so ends the story of a thief without a cause.

Source: AP

*Mastermind It is shown in cinemas in the City of Buenos Aires, province of Buenos Aires, Santa Fe, Córdoba, Mendoza and Montevideo.