The Mastermind directed by Kelly Reichhardt (USA, 2025)
In the BBC Mastermind quiz show which first aired in 1972 the catch phrase invented by original question master Magnus Magnusson when the time buzzer sounded was “I’ve started so I’ll finish.”
In Mastermind, the movie, the feckless anti-hero JB (James Baline Mooney) played by Josh O’Connor starts something he has no idea how to end.
I like the premise of this film which I take to be a study of alienated manhood and the drawbacks of a society founded on rampant individualism.
O’Connor was apparently cast because, unlike so many male lead actors, he does not have a gym-toned body. Kelly Reichardt wanted him to look unexceptional because, although this is a heist movie, it’s a million miles away from the world of Ocean’s Eleven.
The heist is merely the pretext since the main focus of the film is on the fallout from JB’s failed attempt to execute a plan to steal four abstract art paintings. Frankly, it’s hard to see how this hair-brained scheme could have succeeded particularly as the team he has assembled to do the deed are bumbling amateurs The question of why JB even came up with the idea in the first place hangs heavy. He seems motivated more by a desire to make a mark than a desire to get rich quick.
A key scene is when he seeks shelter with friends Maude (Gaby Hoffman) and Fred (John Magaro). When JB asks them what they have been doing recently, they tell him that Maude has done some supply teaching while Fred has shaved off his beard. When the alternative to criminality is a humdrum existence like this, taking the reckless course has a greater appeal.
As Reichardt’s anti-westerns (Meek’s Cutoff and First Cow) have established, she does not make action movies but specialises in slow cinema and character studies. That said, ‘The Mastermind’ actually starts off at a relatively brisk pace and events are sound-tracked by a jerky (and for me mildly irritating) jazz improvisation by Chicago trumpeter Rob Mazurek. For me a cheesy 70s mixtape would have been better and more appropriate.
The Mastermind is a film with no real closure and is full of loose ends. This an observation rather than a criticism.. Josh O’Connor embodies a man whose life is slowly unravelling. The fact that the focus is on him throughout is both a strength and weakness of the film. I would have liked to learn more about his wife Tem (Alana Haim). We never really understand how much she knows about the frustrations that motivate her husband.
In the press for the movie Reichardt has evaded questions about any political inspirations behind the film. She has said only that America is in a ditch right now and leaves audiences to draw their own conclusions as to whether her film hints at this state of affairs.
Arguably in the early 1970s, era in which The Mastermind is set, the signs were already apparent. Peace rallies against a corrupt and hawkish government have modern equivalents in relation to the present administration. Then as now there is an ingrained reluctance to embrace community-based policies. Self-centred materialism rules and entrepreneurial interests hold sway. The winners take it all.
As George Carlin said “It’s called the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.”
