Worth: $18.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton
Intro:
... an important and enthralling film ..
Mass is an important and enthralling film from first time writer and director Fran Kranz. It’s the story of four parents coming together to talk – two of them, the parents of the perpetrator of a mass school shooting, the other two the parents of a teen victim. They meet in one room, the anteroom of a church (the title refers as much to the rituals of the church as it does to the shooting), and speak for the first time in person.
Going into the film, it’s clear what you will be in for: this isn’t a story that could be done half-heartedly, or with less attention to the complex situation that America finds itself in with the ubiquitous nature of shootings – murders – and the complex feelings they unmask.
Mass, and Kranz, are up to the task. The fact that this is a debut feature is hard to digest. Kranz was an actor first. His stage influences are apparent in Mass, which began as a screenplay, went through middle identity as a play, and then made it back to a screenplay. It would have been a shame for this movie to be accessed by fewer people in the US than can see it on screens.
The film has a strong cast because the topic demands it. Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton play Jay and Gail, the parents of the murdered teen. The parents of the school shooter are played by Reed Birney (Succession) and Ann Dowd. The parts require a lot of each actor, including a range of emotions, and their suppression, that would be challenging for any actor. Everything is delivered. With Dowd, the audience is never sure whether her character is coming from a place of good or evil, and as the representative of a school shooter it is the answer to this question that we are continually asking ourselves.
Mass is an intense watch, but it needs to be. Fran Kranz should be the writer/director moviegoers watch in the future, if this debut is anything to go by.
