Classy jazz ripples quietly. Autumn is lit in subtle warm colors that also determine the landscape, the cars, sweaters and knit dresses. THE MASTERMIND is set in 1970, but you barely notice that, because the nonchalance and confidence of the elegant, well-dressed bourgeois-bohemians that populate Kelly Reichardt’s film are timeless. The most nonchalant of them all is James Mooney (Josh O’Connor), the judge’s son with artistic ambitions. Every step and every gesture seems to be just right when he checks out the local art gallery and casually steals a small figurine. The bigger robbery that he is currently planning requires support and so he recruits Larry, Gary and Ronnie who are meant to steal the paintings and drive the getaway car. Mooney remains the mastermind in the background who has all of the threads under control. That’s what he thinks, at least. Then he takes the kids to school on the morning of the heist and realizes they have the day off, there’s a teacher outing. His wife can’t stay with the kids. “You have no plans.” Things go downhill from here.

After SHOWING UP (2022) which is set in Portland’s art community, Kelly Reichardt has filmed her second comedy with THE MASTERMIND, and it’s very charming. The humor is as elegant as the score by Rob Mazurek and is based less on individual payoffs and more on gentle shifts in expectations – on mastermind Mooney and a genre that usually works with high tension. The “one stupid mistake” is a series of very bad planning and anti-climactic everyday situations that are funnier the longer they linger.

Hendrike Bake

Translation: Elinor Lewy