[ad_1]
“Mass,” the debut film by actor Fran Kranz, who also wrote the screenplay, is an intense, scenic drama about two couples who meet to find healing following a tragedy involving their sons. The film, which had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival this week, is set almost entirely in an Episcopal church. The film was shot in Idaho.
Judy (Breeda Wool) eagerly sets up a room where Gail (Martha Plimpton) and Jay (Jason Isaacs) meet Richard (Reed Birney) and Linda (Ann Dowd). Kendra (Michelle N. Carter), who advised one of the couples, is arriving soon. There are awkward and difficult chattering and pregnant pauses. Kranz compensates for these uncomfortable moments with contemplative shots of the church, windows and rooms. Eventually, the two sets of parents arrive and the drama begins in earnest.
The couples, alone in a room and gathered around a table, exchange jokes. They finally start to open. Gail shows some pictures. Linda displays a pot that her son made once she found it special. Everyone is polite. The atmosphere is stifling.
As the characters initially discuss vague details of the crime that affected the two families, “Mass” slowly reveals that Hayden, son of Richard and Linda, murdered 10 students at his high school with guns and a bomb. One of the victims was Evan, the son of Gail and Jay. The reunion, which takes place years after the murder, is an opportunity for each couple to “listen and heal”, but also to understand “why and how it happened”.
Franz wisely allows the “action” in the claustrophobic space to develop naturally, allowing each character – and the audience – to absorb the impact of what is being said. His strategy is paying off. Kranz’s deliberate direction allows viewers to focus on the performers’ actions and reactions. Gail of Plimpton is full of visible pain, expressed so clearly in the way she puts her jaw or makes her voice crack when she speaks. Linda de Dowd, on the other hand, is compassionate and sympathetic, an earthly-mother type who wants to find peace, not conflict. Richard de Birney is cooler, on the defensive. Meanwhile, Isaacs’ Jay is rightly angry, seething inside, while trying to be a supporting rock for his wife.
“Mass” gives each member of the ensemble a great speech to move and express what their characters are feeling. The conversation is certainly compelling as it develops. Certain substantive details may provide clues to individual behavior, but this is not a character study. Instead, the film initiates a discussion of the lasting psychological and emotional impact gun violence and school shootings have on these parents.
Kranz’s script mentions issues with bullying, isolation, computer games, adolescent mental health, and depression to explain the adolescent’s actions. But the film does not – and cannot – provide answers to the destitute characters whose lives were destroyed by this crime. Instead, “Mass” offers an understanding of survivors.
In the film’s most moving scenes, Linda talks about the experience of not being able to process her grief, or even bury her son properly. She explains what it means for her to be considered the mother of a murderer and how she struggles with this sad and hard fact every day. Dowd is poignant in these scenes because she doesn’t ask for mercy; it relieves the only public which, however painful it may be, could understand its singular experience. But it’s a heartbreaking story Linda tells about her son at the end of the movie that really resonates.
On the other hand, Richard is not indifferent, but certainly the most anxious to put it all behind him. It’s an important perspective, but it almost gets lost in the showboating of the other actors.
At various times, Linda asks Gail and Jay for stories of their son, to give them the opportunity to share and remember Evan with affection. Gail recounts a memory, about Evan playing soccer, which leads to a revealing moment. Alternatively, Jay gets angry when he talks about the situation and goes into a tangent about science and psychopathy. As things heat up, Kranz cuts briefly, at a memorial, to give everyone a break.
The filmmaker keeps these cinematic flourishes to a minimum. Fortunately, he uses music sparingly. Only a church choir, heard in the film’s final scene, while well-meaning, feels heavy.
“Mass” can’t help but draw comparisons to Lionel Schriver’s novel, “We Must Talk About Kevin”, about a school shooter, and Yasmina Reza’s play, “God of Carnage”, about two parents of sons involved in conflict, both of which have been adapted into films. But Kranz’s dark drama is a worthy entry into the genre. It is all about forgiveness and how people can find something valuable in something horrible. However, as cynical as it may sound, one cannot help but think that “Mace” was designed for bleeding heart liberals. He does not recognize the virtue of resentment.
A small but meaningful moment at the end of the film may better answer this question. Gail wonders what to do with the flowers Linda kindly made for her. She doesn’t deliberately leave them behind or throw them in contempt. She asks for a box to put them on, which makes Linda feel thoughtless and challenges the benevolent Judy. So Gail holds them, as a symbol of her child, which she cannot let go. The “Mass” can say more in this calm, reflective moment than in all the conversations that preceded it.
[ad_2]
Source link