A look at Mass, not entertainment but it delivers on the range of human emotion it is able to encompass

Introduction: Everyone is a victim

Name of film: Mass

Director: Fran Kranz

Year: 2021

Poster

Official Trailer

Review

A virtual four hander, set in one airless church room. Two sets of parents meet up six years after a high school shooting, in a suffocating, grim and beautifully acted film about accusation, blame and forgiveness. One set of parents have a murdered son, the other parents are of the son's killer who also died.
This film could have been overwrought but it isn't. It is instead, handled with great delicacy – it wouldn't work unless the script and the acting were 100 per cent and believable and both are – these are not just actors you feel - they are four people in pain, trying to make sense of something they cannot.
The church meeting has been prepared by a lawyer and a therapist. Jay (Jason Isaacs) and Gail (Martha Plimpton) are with Richard (Reed Birney) and Linda (Ann Dowd), struggling with their loss on top of their responsibility in the murder – it was their son who was the shooter. Actor turned first-time writer-director, Fran Kranz, keeps us with the four for nearly the whole film and what starts as tentative politeness, turns to anger, blame and eventually something bigger. No one leaves the room, the camera stays fixed on the actors for nearly two hours. There is no massive score to ramp up the tension. It’s claustrophobic and extremely difficult to watch, but at the centre of it are to the four impeccable performance, each parent speaking about their own anguish.
The murdered boys parents, want to know every detail, want to know why the other parents didn't do anything – didn't see the signs – they must have been clear.
Richard is interpreted as firstly matter of fact, then antagonistic and then someone unwilling to accept the gravity of what his son has done. But in reality, all four are victims including the murderer, a bullied boy with mental health issues.
Jay and Gail come ready for confrontation but what they find is more sadness, two other people who have also lost their son but whose grief is unending. A primal need to find someone to be angry at and to punish, fizzles out, replaced by something more humane.
The dialogue is quick and the range of emotions covered wide. The four actors dig into their parts, into their desolate characters avoiding melodrama and sentiment and instead focussing on unending grief, always present and hurting. Birney and Dowd have difficult roles to pull off, but they’re both able to convey the conflict of still loving a son who did something so terrible – Anne Dowd has been tipped for an Oscar for her performance and it is her final moments in the film that will stay with you. She is the picture of distress and kindness throughout.
Kranz, acted in The Cabin in the Woods, a strange entry point into this crafted debut, a film of difficult questions and uneasy answers.
Mass is not enjoyable, it is not entertainment but it delivers on the range of human emotion it is able to encompass.
Mass is screening at the Sundance Festival with a release date in England yet to be confirmed.

My favorite scene

Number of SUBs out of 10 - 8/10

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Thanks for reading my review, always up for comments and a chat about films and TV.