Mass (2021)

Thoughts and Prayers/Tantrums and Stares

or

My Truth and Reconciliation with Andre

Everybody's nervous. Judy (Breeda Wool), the administrator of the Episcopal Church is over-thinking and over-fretting. Should there be refreshments? She has too much. How should the chairs be positioned? Is the table alright? Will the noise from the church above—music lessons, choir practice—be a distraction? How about the decorations? Too much? She wants to help, but perhaps too much. Things are the way they are, and she's reassured by the social worker (Michelle N. Carter) that everything's fine. It will be fine. Don't change anything. It is what it is. They're ready. After all this time, they're ready.

 

The place may be ready, but not the participants. At this stage of the game, they all have doubts. And fears. Oh, the legalities have been taken care of. Whatever is said, can't be used in court against any of the parties; all those potentialities have been waived and agreed to by all. But, do they want to do it? Still? After all this time? What can be gained (after so much loss)? What is the point of it?

It's probably Richard (Reed Birney), who has insisted on the legalities. He seems the most defensive, the most guarded, and, right off the bat, indicates that he has some place he's going to have to go. His wife, Linda (Ann Dowd), however, is anything but. She has brought flowers for the others, the only one not empty-handed. And she is solicitous, forthcoming, open where Richard is reserved. She is the least reticent of them all and seems to be the one most in need.

The others are the Perrys, Gail (Martha Plimpton) and Jay (Jason Isaacs), middle-class (by the looks of it) and, each with an agenda but not sure how they'd get there. They are angry, but they've been angry for years, and they've tamped down their bitterness and it's come to this. Now, maybe they'll get answers. Answers to why their son is dead from a school shooting. Why Richard and Linda's son shot him.

Mass, the first film by actor-writer-director Fran Kranz, couldn't be more simple: four people in a room trying to figure out what happened, and trying to figure out each other. The way to negotiate that mine-field and get answers (if they can be found or understood). Four people, two couples, facing each other and the event that they share. It's as claustrophobic as could be and Kranz, in that limited space, has as much room to maneuver as he would if he were filming a court-room scene—the drama is on the faces and the choices he makes in framing, cutting have to be precise and pointed.

Fortunately, he has four extraordinary actors doing exceptional work; Birney, Dowd, Plimpton and Isaacs are photographed from the waist up, due to that table, and there is no place to hide, anything false will be betrayed by the camera. And every hesitation, eye-flick, every avoidance is as detectable to us as it is to the participants. We get to see the redness come into the eyes or the scowl deepen. There is no escape from the concentration of the gaze as they search for some meaning to it all, search for the beginnings of it, try to explain it, and relive it in all its horror and implications. They've been dealing with it for years. Now, they have to learn to live with it and each other.

It is edge-of-your-seat drama, but without histrionics and melodrama, and the tension already built in to the setting and the situation. It is slowly uncoiling the past, confronting mistakes and missteps, signs ignored or just fallen through the cracks, deciding the blame if blame can be found, and trying to make sense of senseless acts. There is no politics here, science is brought up but fails, and, in the end, nothing will change, the dead can't be brought back, but a future might be salvaged. To what end?

The performances are extraordinary and may be the best ensemble work of the year, each actor allowed their run through the gauntlet, but it's the cumulative effect that your remember. And you'd have to be made of stone to make it through the movie without tears being shed. For everybody.

Much Ado About Nothing (2013)

"...a Giddy Thing."
or
The Party @ Joss' House

Joss Whedon is a fine writer and a great director.  His output in movies is slim (in TV, of course, it's prodigious)—Serenity, Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog, and Marvel's The Avengers, meaning he's got range and he's no slouch—but there's a high-standard operating there whether budget is low or high, and there's an artistic determination to make "pop" that matters.  The story is that for a long time he's been staging readings of Shakespeare plays at his house with friends and acquaintances, just because he loves Shakespeare. That must have been the impetus to make this movie—Much Ado About Nothing—filmed in 14 days during the long arduous post-production of The Avengers.* 

Must have seemed like a lark during so much Hulking pixilation.

The story's virtually unaltered from the text. It's just transformed to modern day at Joss' house, where a weekend long party is being thrown for...not so much returning soldiers, but captains of industry—hosted by Leonato (Clark Gregg) and daughter Hero (Jillian Morgese) and cousin Beatrice (Amy Acker). The chief guests are Don Pedro (Reed Diamond), Claudio (Fran Kranz), the Don's nefarious brother John (Sean Maher), and Benedick (Alexis Denisof). Now, this is one of Shakespeare's comedies, so pay attention: Benedick and Beatrice have history, which didn't go well and they're still equally bitter about it, protesting too much that they're both above it all. Claudio becomes entranced with Hero, and is wooed on his behalf by Don Pedro. Things get complicated with two household conspiracies: Don John conspires to way-lay the lightning-fast nuptials of Hero and Claudio, and seemingly the entire party  has it in to throw the two grousers, Benedick and Beatrice, together.  Both plans work all too well, splintering one and making the other a matter of necessity.  In the meantime, the local constabulary, led by Dogberry (Nathan Fillion) are working overtime, trying to discover what all the skulking and whispering is about. 

The play may be the thing, but it is in Whedon's presentation that it shines. It is something of a revelation to see how well the early scenes play when everybody is a little bit liquored up, and the performances are surprisingly smooth, belying the pigeon-holing that these mostly television actors have had to suffer, when they can do deftly handle the meatier material—Acker, particularly, is amazingly versatile, and is the clear stand-out in the performances—you could actually believe she thinks in blank-verse—and is nearly note-perfect making the words her own. And Fillion plays his relatively small part in a cagily puffed-up manner the way you'd think William Shatner would (seriously or no) in order to squeeze every drop of comedy out of it. In fact, everybody's good, as there's only a couple minor roles that seem a little dodgy, but not for want of trying. Whedon is very adept at throwing in puckishly physical comedy into the background at a moment's notice to make the play three-dimensional, and sometimes laugh-out-loud hilarious.

Interestingly, if Whedon made this as a detox from The Avengers, it had the same effect here; after suffering through so many over-blown-up and bloated blockbusters, it was a delight to see this quick, brisk little film, with few pretensions and very high gains.  It's really something, well worth seeing, and one looks forward to another party at Joss' house.

* Danny Boyle took the opportunity of down-time planning the British Olympics to make Trance.  A few years ago, Robert Zemeckis took the delay-time for Tom Hanks to lose weight for Cast Away to make What Lies Beneath, and Barry Levinson took advantage of down time on Sphere to make Wag the Dog.