Mass - 2021
Look, I'm just gonna drop the sparring jabs and go right for the combination: A select FEW screenplays have been better than this in the last 10 years. Period. No qualifiers or hedged bets included. When you have something this alive and weighty on the page wedded with four character actors utterly going for broke, the result is a cinematic dynamo that is as core-shaking as the tragedy at the center of its story.
Just about everything about this one is perfectly pitched. I even grew to see the wisdom of the first minutes, which includes some very awkward and bumbling dialogue between members of an Episcopal church staff attempting to set up a safe meeting space for two families. A woman uncertain of her role and overly apologetic, attempting to cow to the feedback of a strong and demanding worker. She has scheduled this liaison and is very particular about the mood that certain furniture placements or window hues could convey.
The point of all the exchanges is very clear: What is about to occur is extremely DIFFICULT and utterly uncommon. It will involve pain, the rehashing of trauma, and skull-drilling discomfort. Despite our best efforts to be "available" and accommodating, sometimes there is simply no antidote when raw human grief holds court. In its setup and opening frames, Mass is as authentic as it gets.
A grief session is precisely what, in fact, occurs next. Two couples come together, engage in their own dance of clumsy pleasantries, and start to settle into a rhythm. I do not want to get spoiler heavy in the least, but suffice it to say that what comes next is an extended dialogue which arises out of a largely American happening. Writer/director Fran Kranz finds a way to give the tragic event its own shape and contours, particular details which inform the narrative. Because of this the film moves from the kind of headline reading that has rubbernecked us all to a specific event in two families' lives which becomes all too real.
Besides the plot and dialogue specifics, this is also just four actors in top form. Each has their own characteristics which come to the fore in a sequence or scene before receding for another character or speech to rise in its place. At first glance I would say that it is Ann Dowd or Jason Isaacs who "steal the show," but Martha Plimpton and Reed Birney are every bit as effective in their muted roles. Pain, it seems to me, is a kind of kaleidoscope, as variegated in hues and tones as the reflected light it holds.
Beyond this, this is no "show" at all. It is, in fact, a kind of holy ritual, for which the church setting is more than apropos. It is a sacred rite of grief and the sharing of humanity (in all its traumatic forms) as we wonder if we’ll begin to see the first light of reconciliation. We, the viewers, are privileged to glimpse, like a fly on the wall, this room full of hushed whispers and stentorian grandstanding.
In the end, Mass is a film with political implications and social questions raised. To its credit, it never shies away from these matters or sidelines the psychological and sociological aspects of its tale. But, it deserves even more plaudits for not allowing these factors to subsume what is at its core a deeply personal drama about loss, found grace, redemption, and the depths of human connection. Could not recommend this work more if I tried.
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