Mass, 2021.
Written and directed by Fran Kranz.
Starring Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd and Reed Birney.
SYNOPSIS:
Six years after a devastating tragedy, two couples gather in a room to talk about the day that destroyed their lives.
About two thirds of the way through Mass, the bracing debut feature from writer-director Fran Kranz, the central quartet—comprising Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd and Reed Birney—pause in momentary silence. As they sit together, eyes closed, bodies framed by bright sunlight, few such periods of quiet contemplation in any film this year will speak quite so loudly.
That’s because Kranz’s potent drama is one underpinned by devastating absence. Taking place six years after a painfully familiar event, a high school shooting, two sets of parents—Jay (Isaacs) and Gail (Plimpton); Richard (Birney) and Linda (Dowd)—who both lost sons in the tragedy convene in a small, unremarkable church room for a meeting arranged by their lawyers and therapist. For both couples, the pain is evidently still raw. But the occasion has an added layer of poignancy: it was Richard and Linda’s son who was the shooter that day.
Their exchanges begin as polite and courteous, but soon the anger burning inside Jay and Gail becomes too much to suppress: the pair seemingly intent on placing further responsibly at the feet of the perpetrator’s parents who failed to spot the signs. Confined almost entirely to the interior of a single location, it’s here that, in lesser hands, the film could succumb to the trappings of stagey, preachy melodrama about America’s gun laws and bureaucratic shortcomings.
But Kranz—an actor perhaps known best for his turn as a weed-obsessed teen in the playful, meta-horror, The Cabin in the Woods—largely forsakes political musings in favour of something far more compelling. Each one of the characters, in their own way, is a victim and Kranz makes a pointed effort not to pass judgement or sidestep the difficult issues invariably thrown up by the subject matter. Rather, he appears to seek them out and face them head on, and in doing so commendably embraces the messy complexity of blame.
Unsurprisingly then, Mass is oftentimes a tough watch: a film that, quite literally, traps character and viewer in something of an emotional, excruciating, real-time endurance test. But being suitably void of sentimentality and movie-making excess—there is no musical score and the temptation for flashback or reconstruction is shrewdly resisted—allows the story to unfurl as a sensitive, profound examination of grief, catharsis and forgiveness.
The film’s title, therefore, harbours something of a dual meaning. It may more overtly be referring to the event itself: a mass shooting. But the heavy emotional burden; the weight of responsibility carried by the ones left behind, is where the film’s true interest lies.
It’s a narrative focus elevated in no small way by the universally impressive performances of the film’s four-strong principal cast. Isaacs and Plimpton are convincing as a couple whose lives have been shattered by equal parts rage and bewilderment. Meanwhile, Birney and Dowd are equally gripping as parents grappling with the conflict of loving someone who did something atrocious and whose grief will never be recognised by society in the same way. Plimpton and Dowd prove particularly affecting: the latter’s final moment in the film proving the ultimate gut punch amidst a resolution that runs the risk of feeling a little too contrived.
In the last two decades, several films have boldly broached the topic of school shootings in vastly different but equally compelling ways—from Michael Moore’s politically-charged documentary Bowling for Columbine to Lynne Ramsay’s adaptation of We Need to Talk About Kevin to Brady Corbet’s pop drama Vox Lux. Mass makes the case for stripping everything back and instead homing in on the longest serving victims in all of this: the loved ones desperately trying to make sense of an unfathomable tragedy. It’s an unflinching study of grief and anger that tackles the difficult questions while avoiding the easy answers. The result is an impeccably-acted humanist drama that will stay with you long after the credits have finished rolling.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
George Nash is a freelance film journalist. Follow him on Twitter via @_GeorgeNash for more movie musings.
