"A family man and a carpenter with a house in the Boston suburbs, J.B. seems merely to have fallen on hard times. It's 1970, he's unemployed, and the U.S. is preparing a ground invasion of Cambodia. Not that any of this seems to bother him much. Instead, he spends a lot of time at the Framingham Museum of Art, circling a gallery of abstract paintings by the American modernist Arthur Dove."
"The Mastermind is not Reichardt's first heist caper-by my count, it's her fourth-but it begins as her most direct. J.B. wants those Dove paintings, and after weeks spent casing the joint, he's assembled a crack team to get them. Just kidding; we're talking about a Kelly Reichardt film here. The heist itself is little more than a smash and grab, pulled off by a group of townie deadbeats, with an unwitting assist from J.B.'s wife Terri (Alana Haim), and unknowingly funded by his mother (Hope Davis)."
"Not that J.B. would describe himself as such. If pressed, I don't know that he would say much about himself at all. A loner propped up by a community, bluffing his way through the role of father, husband, and son, he is always misleading someone, often himself. He holds himself as an everyman apart, mocking his conservative parents but unafraid to mislead them into extending him yet another loan."
Kelly Reichardt follows J.B. Mooney, a Boston suburban carpenter and family man who has fallen on hard times in 1970. He fixates on Arthur Dove paintings at the Framingham Museum of Art and assembles a ragtag crew to steal them. The heist is a crude smash-and-grab executed by townie deadbeats with unwitting help from his wife Terri and funds provided unknowingly by his mother. The stolen works end up hidden in his attic, offering hollow consolation. J.B. presents himself as an everyman while routinely misleading family and community. The film frames small-time crime as an expression of desperation and performative escape.
Read at Defector
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]