Master of None

The Mastermind (2025) - Reichardt Kelly Reichardt, who has built a reputation as a singular voice in American Indie cinema, garnered devout followers and admirers with her minimalist films over the years. But she stumbles here with the art heist period piece, The Mastermind. One can say that Reichardt's films are always small and narratively open and unresolved - that the beauty of her films is not in satisfying storytelling, but the loneliness she depicts within her often outsider protagonists. And that assessment rings true. But James, our protagonist in The Mastermind, played by Josh O'Connor, is a thoroughly downbeat, unpleasant character to identify with.

It starts with James Mooney (O'Connor) scoping a museum for a score, with his family in tow - his wife Terri (Alana Haim) and two doting young sons, Carl and Tommy (adorably played by real-life siblings Sterling and Jasper Thompson) in a small town, Massachusetts. The year is 1970 and the shadow of the Vietnam War is on TV and the streets every day. It is revealed that James is an art school dropout ne'er-do-gooder in the eyes of his father (Bill Camp), a local judge, who has strong opinions about law and order. James lies about the imminent commission job, so he can borrow money from his sympathetic mother (Hope Davis) behind his father's back.

The art heist, which happens pretty briskly in the first one third of the film, doesn't go well: his last minute assembled crew screws up and ends up on the front page of a local newspaper and on TV. Hiding the fact that he was the mastermind behind the bungled heist from his family and the paintings he stole ending up in the hands of threatening local criminals, James has no choice but to go on the run. And the film becomes a road movie.

James's first stop is a farmstead of old college buddies Fred (John Magaro) and Maude (Gaby Hoffmann). It is revealed that the paintings James stole belong to one of the professors in their art college days. That the burglary was partly out of old-time resentment (over success?) that James chose those particular abstract paintings to steal. Fred is amused that his one-time classmate made a front page of the news and on the run. Maude, a clear eyed realist who doesn't want more trouble in their stable yet poverty stricken life, sternly tells James to leave.

James now takes off to Cleveland, to mooch off of another old friend. But he finds out that they are not home. With money running out and nowhere else to go, he calls Terri, who promptly hangs up on him. With anti-war protests on the street, and cops swarming to control them, James needs to figure his way out.

Reichardt sketches out James's character in subtle ways, giving us only the slight glimpse of a man whose resentments against the success of others and authority figures run deep. Like her Oregon Trail film First Cow, which showed how capitalism was ingrained in the prospecting days of American history, The Mastermind deals with an apathetic character getting swept up in the anti-war movement in the 60s and 70s. But even in her depiction of a prospecting, proto-capitalist in the west in First Cow, there was a small warmth and humanity in the friendship forged between Cookie and King Hu. Instead, James is a person who would steal an old lady's purse during anti-war protests to get by.

I don't fault Reichardt for trying something different. But if her previous genre exercise was any indication - the eco-thriller Night Moves, the only film in her spotless filmography that I didn't care for, she has a real problem handling depicting on-screen violence. I understand her philosophy of refusing to show it and I respect it. But depictions of violence in genre films are wholly necessary, and avoiding it in unambiguous ways comes across as super awkward and unnatural.

I understand why hotshot actors like Josh O'Connor want to work with Reichardt. Her unique small films and her gentle way of depicting loneliness and isolation are truly remarkable. But when the scale of her project gets bigger and more complicated - like her take on a genre film, this time a heist movie in a period setting, the result is less emotionally engaging. The Thompson brothers give the film its laughs and humanity needed. Haim looks the part as a 70s wife/mom, but is wasted in her one note character.

Marriage Counselor

Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer (2024) - Karaçelik Keane (John Magaro, First Cow) is a struggling writer who has been toiling on a book about a love story set in prehistoric time, for the last 4 years. His somewhat successful previous book was about Mongolians, which he had no knowledge about, just like the Cro-Magnons and Neandertals. His publisher is not crazy about the concept. It's not sexy enough - Keane should write about what he knows, he suggests. It is pretty obvious that his interior designer wife Suzie (Britt Lower, Severance) is not happy with having been a sole bread-winner of the house, and can't stand listening to his idiotic idea for the book that he will never finish, at dinner parties with friends. Her glacial expression and silence speaks volumes. She wants a divorce.

Everything changes when Keane is approached by Kollmick (Steve Buscemi), who says he's a fan and seems to know a lot about the author, at a bar. Kollmick has a proposition - 'write about a serial killer and I will tell you everything I know about serial killers.' Because he himself is a retired serial killer. He will show Keane the ropes. But after getting caught by Suzie, sneaking into the house in the middle of the night with Kollmick, Keane tells Suzie that Kollmick is a marriage counselor. So starts an unusual, funny dark comedy with the incredibly long title: Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer.

Suzie is not convinced that Kollmick is what he says he is. His method- bringing his stuffed dead cat with a doll's arm and telling the couple to talk to each other while looking only at the cat, doesn't really help to quell Suzie's suspicions. Also, she is suspecting that Keane is trying to kill her, based on all the books he's been reading - about serial killers and poisoning, which were given to him by Kollmick. But strangely, the counselling sessions, however unorthodox they seem, are proving to be helpful in their marriage.

Kollmick's idea- kidnapping Keane's publisher to get first-hand experience of the serial killer's process, doesn't sit well with Keane even with Kollmick's assurance- "He will understand, if it's for a sexy bestseller." But the plan, involving an Albanian gun dealer and a bottle of chloroform, doesn't go the way they expected, of course. To make matters worse, Suzie is on their trail, watching all the absurd situations that Keane and Kollmick find themselves in.

Psycho Therapy plays out like a dark indie noir comedy from the 90s, which we don't see often nowadays. Tolga Karaçelik's writing is brimming with absurdist humor and keeping unnecessary expositions to a minimum. With his-high pitched cracking voice, John Magaro is perfect for a bumbling poseur writer. Britt Lower's glacial Suzie with killer instincts had me cackling. Buscemi, who executive produced the film, chews up the scenes with that disdainful stare he is known for. The film ends abruptly, but rightfully after the night of kidnapping(s) gone wrong, where true natures of the couple are revealed. Psycho Therapy is a wildly entertaining black comedy with a pitch perfect cast.

Psycho Therapy: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write about a Serial Killer will be in New York Theaters on April 4th with a Theatrical Expansion and On Demand April 11.