Leave it to realist filmmaker Kelly Reichardt to strip all of the style and panache from an American heist movie. It shouldn’t be surprising. She did the same thing with her understated eco-terrorism drama Night Moves. With The Mastermind, she returns to the art world, following the excellent Michelle Williams drama Showing Up, and delivers a low-wattage story of the worst art thief ever, played with shaggy dog charm by the ubiquitous Josh O’Connor. And while there’s a surprising amount of comic hijinks than in your typical Reichardt film, the combination of her deliberate pacing with an aimless narrative proves to be a tough sell.
The title, The Mastermind, is itself a joke. O’Connor’s protagonist, James, is a delusional sadsack and art school dropout in 1970s Massachusetts. He claims to be pursuing a career in architecture, but he doesn’t actually do anything to prove that. Instead, he uses this lie to crib money from his mother (Hope Davis), while enduring his disapproving father, a local judge played by Bill Camp. James sneaks around his wife Terri (a disappointingly underused Alana Haim), and their two chatty, inquisitive boys, by taking them along with him to case a nearby museum. They don’t know that James has a dream, and it’s to rob that museum, with its perpetually sleeping guard, and…well, who knows what his ultimate goal is? To sell the art? To admire it? We never really know.
The strongest point of The Mastermind is the crime itself, with Reichardt showing how everyday, mundane roadblocks can make such a crime remarkably unglamorous and silly. It’s a teacher workday and James can’t find a babysitter for the boys, so he dumps them at a nearby mall with pleas for them to stay out of trouble. One of James’ hires skips town because crooks will be crooks; a cop stops right next to the getaway car to eat his boring lunch; a security guard gets roughed up and a gun gets pulled but they are like afterthoughts and undramatic. At least the guard is still napping. Even the jazzy musical cues don’t change; Reichardt isn’t the director you look to for dramatic flourishes.
The aftermath is less assured, as James and his crew quickly unravel, and he is forced to go on the run. It’s more like he goes on a brisk jog, as even James’ flight from justice moves glacially. Women seem to see right through him. You get the sense that Terri has been getting fed up with James for a long time, and finally wants nothing to do with him. When James flees to the country home of his old friend Fred (John Magaro, always fantastic), it’s his perceptive wife Maude (Gaby Hoffman) who warns him to stay away. James hops from bus to bus with no direction and even less money, looking like a hobo riding the rails cross-country to anywhere they will take him.
Reichardt shows flashes of a volatile, changing country that James seems to be disconnected from. The Vietnam War rumbles on, with signs of protest and violent confrontation making up the backdrop of James’ flight from justice. He stands in the shadow of a more successful brother whom he is always being compared to. You can feel a bit of sadness for James, who has maybe always felt inadequate. He doesn’t seem to be a bad guy, but James is also the kind of person you wouldn’t want to have around, and definitely shouldn’t fall in love with. He’s the type who will always let you down in the end. His charm has always been enough, but everything falls apart when that charm isn’t enough. Unfortunately, O’Connor’s also isn’t enough to keep The Mastermind as engaging as we’d like it to be. Reichardt’s well-observed portrait of a bumbling would-be criminal is a lesser work from a brilliant artist. You see the beauty in the brushstrokes, but the picture as a whole never quite comes together.
The Mastermind is in theaters now via Mubi.
