Sundance Review: ‘Mass’
With a deeply moving premise and powerful performances from all of its four lead actors, Fran Kranz’s Mass is the best film to premiere at Sundance 2021 so far. The 2022 Oscar race officially starts here.
There have been a number of films that have tried to address the horrors of school shootings, and the brutal impact they leave on the people involved. Films like We Need to Talk About Kevin and Rudderless both successfully managed to chart both the event that led up to and the emotional fall-out that resulted from those terrible tragedies in a relatively nuanced manner, while others, like this year’s terribly misguided misfire Run Hide Fight, tried to exploit those events instead. But it’s safe to say that no movie has done it quite like Mass does.
Marking the directorial debut of The Cabin in the Woods star Fran Kranz, Mass takes place entirely in a cozy, inviting Episcopal Christian church run by a kooky and earnest minister’s wife Judy (Breeda Wool) and her aloof assistant Anthony (Kagen Albright). One of the church’s rooms has been booked as the venue for an ultra-secretive meeting, the details of which the audience is not given at first. A social worker (Michelle N. Carter) arrives early to ensure that the meeting room set up for the guests is suitable, painstakingly assessing every inch of the room to make sure it meets her high standards. As the mysterious guests (Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney and Ann Dowd) start arriving, their painfully awkward greetings slowly ramp up into a fevered and passionate discussion, culminating in a profound and deeply upsetting study of life, grief and culpability.
It takes a while for Kranz to fully tip his hand and reveal the intricacies in his story but it’s not that difficult to surmise what the major catalyst of this event is, why these characters are so damaged and broken. The appeal of Mass does not lie in the presence of a twist or any surprise factors the director, who also wrote the screenplay, may have for his audience, but the nuance and care with which Kranz approaches the film’s subject matter, building an emotionally complex narrative that gradually grows into a fiery exploration of guilt and forgiveness.
Which is not to say that the film doesn’t have any visual style. Kranz imbues the film with enough visual flourishes to heighten its tense, uneasy atmosphere, keeping the audience firmly on the edge of its seat throughout the course of the film’s two-hour runtime, but Mass’ main selling point is its sharp, introspective dialogue that largely ends up working thanks to the phenomenal performances from all four of its main cast members.
Ann Dowd, who is simply one of the best actresses working today, is absolutely spellbinding as the warm and welcoming Linda, a woman dealing with the fall-out of her child’s deadly actions. Known for her remarkable performances in shows such as The Leftovers and The Handmaid’s Tale, she is in top form here, delivering a devastating performance as a woman trying to reckon with the actions of her offspring. Reed Birney, playing her ex-husband and the father of her children, is burdened with the difficult task of making a morally complex character sympathetic to audiences and he is mostly successful, gradually peeling his character’s deeply embedded layers away as the film progresses.
Jason Isaacs, meanwhile, delivers a career-best performance as a father grappling with the devastating loss of a child, diving into deep, dark places and emerging with a performance that will surely put him in awards contention. The film’s best performance, however, belongs to Martha Plimpton, an incredibly underrated actress known mostly for her television work. Here, she delivers a searing, haunting and touching turn as a grieving mother struggling to come to terms with the painful loss of a child. She is mesmerizing in her ferocity, utterly heartbreaking in her anguish and agony. It is a performance for the ages.
While Mass eventually does overstay its welcome by the end of its runtime, it is still a powerful, deeply moving work of art that boasts a group of incredible and unforgettable performances that will stay with you far after the credits roll.
Rating: 4/5
Mass premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 2021.