Mass (2021)

Mass review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

Mass may be one of the most refined dramatic films of the past few years. It takes place in one location for one day with one troubling topic. A small church is preparing for a meeting. The church staff set up the meeting room and try to make everything perfect. They reconsider having displays created by the local children for fears of what it may trigger. This will not be an easy meeting.

After some awkward introductions, we soon learn what this meeting is about. It concerns a shooting at a school six years ago. Two sets of parents meet. Jay (Jason Isaacs) and Gail Perry (Martha Plimpton) are the parents of one of the victims and Richard (Reed Birney) and Linda (Ann Dowd) are the parents of the shooter. They’re hoping to come to terms with each other and perhaps mend some old wounds. Those wounds, however, run rather deep, where it feels as though honesty may not be enough to come to terms with their grief.

The whole film takes place in one room as the parents bat around the tough topics that are not easy to talk about in this situation. Jay brings up how lacking gun control led to the gun violence that took his child. Richard makes the brash move of trying to defend against gun control, a defense that nearly derails the conversation before Jay steers it right back around about the issue becomes a distracting wedge issue. Later on, Linda finds herself trying to open up more to Gail by telling her everything about her boy to better understand why he did what he did. The hidden answers bring little comfort but admittance to being in the dark brings some small comfort as the two women try to find common ground in past stories of their kids.

The acting on display here is A-list material, all actors firing on all cylinders that it feels criminal the Academy Awards overlooked all of them. Here are four amazing talents trapped in a room with little surrounding them and bring about an amazing performance that glues the eyes to the screen. Jason Isaacs has the perfect amount of anger and sadness, making him a powder-keg of a grieving father, one misspeak away from launching a chair across the room. Martha Plimpton has an amazing presence with her mere posture and expression, conveying a sense of being as reserved as she is a quiet ball of rage, unsure where to place it.

Reed Birney really does feel like that misguided father who struggles to find reasons and answers for why his child went on a killing spree but finds not much simplicity and only scorn for being so unaware. And, wow, does Ann Dowd become the heart and soul of this picture. She’s always played that perfect mom character but ascends to a whole new level as she becomes perhaps the coolest head and saddest person in the room, feeling as though she’s one step ahead of everyone on the road to forgiveness and peace.

For being such a simple film with a modicum of a budget, director Fran Kranz brings out something powerfully contemplative that will linger far longer in the mind than any big-budget film ever could. The characters feel rich and intricate with their observations of the world. The church setting is cozy yet relatable, with everything from the mildly frantic coordinator to the practicing choir that closes out the picture. All of it amounts to make for one of the best dramas of the 2020s with some of the most pitch-perfect performances.