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An out-of-nowhere triumph, "Mass" is the sort of American drama that you rarely see anymore: an intimate four-character piece about the aftermath of a school shooting that unfolds mostly in one room, letting a powerhouse cast and a thoughtful script carry much of the burden of meaning.

Martha Plimpton and Jason Isaacs play the parents of a teenage boy who was one of ten students murdered in a school shooting. Ann Dowd and Reed Birney are the parents of the killer, a depressed and disturbed young man. The couples agree to sit at a table in the basement of an Episcopalian church and talk about, well, everything, in hopes of moving past depression, grief and anger, through catharsis, and toward a state of acceptance, or at least insight.

There's a brief setup featuring Michelle N. Carter as the social worker handling the details of the meeting, and Breeda Wool as a woman who works at the church, and is helpful to the point of being unnerving, but the vast majority of the film consists of the four main characters doing the hard work of confronting the unspeakable. The results are never less than riveting, and there are multiple moments—democratically distributed among the four leads—that are as good as screen acting can get.

Although "Mass" is an original work written for the screen by its director, actor Fran Kranz —in his feature filmmaking debut—it has the feel of a stage play or live TV drama that was subsequently adapted for the big screen, during an era when people would happily pay to see theatrical films about adults in the real world, dealing with life-changing events that could actually happen. Film buffs may be reminded of such claustrophobic stage-to-screen classics as "Days of Wine and Roses," "Marty," " 12 Angry Men ," "Vanya on 42 St." and " Glengarry Glen Ross ." The film's excellence in every department earns these comparisons.

From the moment that Plimpton and Isaacs's characters, Jay and Gail, arrive at the church, tension starts coiling up, and you just know that when it's finally released, it'll be something to see. Plimpton, a 1980s youth star whose character actor phase has been consistently fascinating, captures the buried rage of a mom whose agony over losing a son in an act of obscene violence was magnified by the frustration of seeing the parents of the perpetrator protect themselves from legal and financial blame on the advice of legal counsel. From the second that she appears onscreen, you expect her to explode at some point; her exasperated and openly hostile expressions as the other couple obfuscates, minimizes, qualifies and otherwise tries to tamp down the tension in the room are all little masterpieces of reactive acting. Isaacs, however, catches up with Plimpton, as we start to discern that, even though Jay carries himself as a "voice of reason"-type who has done the right reading and consulted the right experts and thinks of himself as a mediator between his wife and the rest of the world, he's sitting on a megaton of anger himself.

Dowd's Linda and Birney's Richard initially come across as representatives of a specific type of middle American suburbanite, with a placid, peaceful-yet-resolute demeanor that reads as conciliatory and sensitive but that pretty soon starts to seem condescending and self-protecting. You see their vibe rather often among reactionaries who've figured out how to come across as presentable when dealing with people outside of the tribe.

Richard, the only character dressed formally, warns Jay and Gail at the top of their meeting that he has somewhere to be, and spends much of the first third of the sit-down seeming as if his main goal is to deflect blame from himself and his wife. He keeps reminding the others that this is a complicated situation and that the tragedy has many possible causes, that it's not possible to reduce it to any one problem, and soon enough you're rolling your eyes along with Gail, because it seems as if Richard has come to this meeting with a bad faith attitude, and cares mainly about not saying or doing anything actionable (even though both couples signed papers stating that they wouldn't use anything said in that room for legal purposes).

Richard's actually not wrong—a school shooting is a multifaceted horror that can't be reduced to any one thing. Parents will likely be made increasingly uncomfortable by the film's insistence that some things in life are mysterious and immune to simple explanation, and that even good mothers and fathers (all four characters here fit the description) can let certain things slide without realizing how they can snowball and eventually lead to indescribable misery and violence.

But does that necessarily mean that school shootings are, in some sense, an inexplicable cosmic occurrence, an "Act of God" like a flood or avalanche? Even floods and avalanches have human causes, as we're increasingly starting to understand and admit.

It turns out that the movie has decided to sidestep or minimize some of the more explosive political and cultural issues that tend to be at the center of incidents like these in the United States, gun ownership and gun control being a huge one. Linda and Richard apparently don't own firearms themselves, and it's explained that their son, a prototypical bullied loner who was nonspecifically radicalized online, stole them from the father of a friend. Nor is there any talk of the respective politics of the couples.

This seems like a case where the filmmaker has decided to trade one kind of storytelling problem for another. You can't discuss mass shootings in the United States—quite literally the only supposedly civilized country where these things happen several times a week for years on end—without discussing the gun lobby, the mass opposition to any kind of meaningful gun regulations, and lots of related issues. Richard's early invocation of his son's mental health seems as if it's going to lead to talk of how gun culture uses mental health as a red herring to deflect attention away from the necessity of gun control (as Jay observes, a tragedy can have more than one cause; it's interesting that Richard himself said this before Jay did).

But "Mass" seems unwilling to get too deep in the weeds when it comes to topics like these, as it would distract from the human drama, and the film isn't wrong to believe this; had the movie become a policy discussion using characters as mouthpieces, a la the worst of Aaron Sorkin , it wouldn't be nearly as moving as it is.

It's hard to convey in words the kind of visual excitement that comes from watching a piece anchored by four skilled, magnetic character actors who look like the sorts of people you might actually meet in life. Even the performer who comes closest to having a matinee-idol look, Isaacs, isn't a ridiculous, 'roided-up action figure, of the type that tends to anchor 21st century commercial films; with his sad eyes, grief-sunken face, and week's worth of facial scruff, he has the look of a middle-aged suburban man who runs a couple of miles a day, and who everyone agrees is the most handsome of all the dads.

These actors feel real in a way that movie characters rarely do, and Kranz shows that he has an instinctive feel for staging dialogue cinematically, making mostly subtle yet decisive and meaningful directorial choices (such as switching from locked-down, steady images to rough handheld shots, and changing the shape of the screen itself) while always letting the cast's in-the-moment decisions pull the story along.

This is a difficult movie to sit through, not just because of the subject matter, but because it's so honest in dramatizing how people process tragedy and carry it through life.

Now playing in select theaters.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film credits.

Mass (2021)

110 minutes

Jason Isaacs as Jay

Martha Plimpton as Gail

Reed Birney as Richard

Ann Dowd as Linda

Breeda Wool as Judy

Kagen Albright as Anthony

Cinematographer

Ryan Jackson-Healy
Yang Hua Hu
Darren Morze

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Watch Mass with a subscription on Hulu, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

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Mass requires a lot of its audience, but rewards that emotional labor with a raw look at grief that establishes writer-director Fran Kranz as a filmmaker of tremendous promise.

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Reed Birney

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‘Mass’ Review: Stages of Grief

Years after a school shooting, two couples meet to discuss their children — the one whose life was taken, and the one who took his life.

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By Teo Bugbee

The couples at the heart of the chamber drama “Mass” have much in common. Each pair has two children, one living and one dead. And they share the same tragedy. Linda and Richard’s son, Hayden, killed Gail and Jay’s son, Evan, in a school shooting, before turning his gun on himself.

Years have passed, and now the couples have gathered in the back room of a church to discuss their children — the one who was taken, and the one who took. Gail (Martha Plimpton) and Jay (Jason Isaacs) initiated this meeting, and their goal is to uncover the facts that led to their child’s murder. Gail and Jay ask questions, and Linda (Ann Dowd) and Richard (Reed Birney) respond, recalling attempts to seek psychological help for their son, and the decisions that did not prevent his violence.

The writer and director Fran Kranz stages this congregation like a play. The actors are seated across from each other in a single room, and the camera work is minimal, alternating between close-ups. The dialogue limits the amount of knowledge the audience is given about how or why the central horror took place. This measured approach allows the feelings that flicker across the faces of the movie’s veteran cast to register not only as markers of marvelous acting — though there is plenty of that to spare — but as events with the power to propel the introspective plot.

The movie lacks the gut punch of live theater, the thrill or discomfort of watching people show their feelings in real time. But as cinema, it demonstrates the effectiveness of simplicity. A well-written script and an exemplary cast can still produce a movie worth watching.

Mass Rated PG-13 for references to violence. Running time: 1 hour 50 minutes. In theaters.

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How to Have an Impossible Conversation

The events in Mass are spurred by a school shooting, but the film’s true focus is the challenge of talking through grief.

The four parents in "Mass" sit at a table.

For the first 40 minutes of its runtime, the film Mass refuses to reveal why its four protagonists—two sets of parents—have gathered in a small room in a church basement. They don’t appear to be friends; they’re polite toward one another, but cold. They’re not there to pray or to eat the food that’s been provided. Their conversation is stilted and awkward, descending into silence every few beats.

Finally Gail, played by Martha Plimpton, clarifies their situation. She squeezes the words out, as if desperate to hold them in but incapable of doing so any longer: “Why do I want to know about your son?” she asks. “Because he killed mine.”

Mass , which is now in theaters, is about the lasting trauma spurred by a school shooting that happened years before. Linda (played by Ann Dowd) and Richard (Reed Birney) are the parents of the shooter; Gail and Jay (Jason Isaacs), the parents of a victim. But the film doesn’t dwell on the tragedy that took their sons. It doesn’t indulge in flashbacks, never shows the two boys, and rarely moves outside the sunlit but stifling room. Instead the drama rests in the quartet’s private discussion, an attempt by all parties to move forward , whatever that means.

The writer-director Fran Kranz blocks Mass , his first film, like a stage play. Inspired by true stories about parents of shooters meeting parents of victims, as well as the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, in South Africa, Kranz delivers a delicately paced study not of a school shooting and its aftermath, but of the way people communicate grief. The conversation, which plays out in real time, captures the second-to-second emotional evolution of dealing with unfathomable loss: Their hesitancy to touch the subject of their sons’ deaths bubbles into geysers of vulnerability that they then try to quell. They struggle to modulate their expressions of pain and guilt, especially when their personal conclusions about the event haven’t crystallized as much as they thought—and perhaps never will.

In brewing such precise discomfort, Kranz forces the audience to concentrate deeply on what’s being said and, more important, unsaid. The characters, played meticulously by four top-of-the-line actors, all believe they understand why they’re there: Gail and Jay want more clarity, and, as they repeatedly insist, “to heal”; Linda and Richard feel it’s their responsibility to provide answers. But their exchange doesn’t unspool so neatly. Jay’s gun-control activism hides a buried anger. Linda’s obvious yearning for forgiveness—she offers Gail a handmade bouquet as a gift as soon as she enters the room—betrays her fear, while Richard’s matter-of-fact demeanor covers up a guilt he can’t shake.

This isn’t the typical approach for a school-shooting movie, an unfortunate subgenre born of America’s real-life crises. Recent films that use a school shooting as a backdrop, such as Lakewood and Run Hide Fight , focus primarily on the violence and horror. Others, such as Vox Lux and the Oscar-winning animated short film If Anything Happens I Love You , concentrate on the painful aftermath for survivors and relatives. The current creative impulse, it seems, is to lean into either the drama of the shooting or of its impact; anything else would be too messy.

Mass ’s unusual approach—to consider how people communicate with one another—results in the rare dramatization of a school shooting’s lasting effects that feels truthful without being exploitative. That choice also helps the film resonate beyond its particular tragedy. The close examination of a single conversation shows the frustratingly familiar rhythms in discussions about other sensitive subjects, for instance. Self-editing phrases—“I’m just saying,” “It’s just,” “What I mean is”—pepper the dialogue; the characters are searching for the right words where there are none. In some scenes, they talk past one another, too eager to share their perspectives first. Midway through the film, Jay delivers a monologue about his memory of visiting the school after the shooting that gains speed like a runaway train. It obviously stings Linda and Richard, and the conversation shuts down. In moments like these, Mass understands how the inability to compassionately discuss grief perpetuates it. Yet both couples manage to continue talking, showing the value of empathy.

During a panel I moderated for The Atlantic Festival, Isaacs and Dowd briefly debated whether their film is about a school shooting at all. To Isaacs, it’s not, but Dowd disagreed. Looking back, I think they’re both right: Mass wouldn’t work without the event that led its foursome into that small church room, but its message—that the simple act of talking about trauma is an often overlooked step toward healing—also transcends its specific tragedy.

Watch: Atlantic staff writer Shirley Li in conversation with Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, and Fran Kranz

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‘Mass’ Review: A Charged Meditation on the Aftermath of a School Shooting

The parents of the shooter meet the parents of a victim in a talk-therapy drama that packs a truthful punch.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

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“ Mass ,” a drama that consists of two couples seated across a table from each other in a placidly sterile church antechamber, discussing the unthinkable (two of them are the parents of a teenage boy who was killed in a school shooting; the other two are the parents of the shooter), is a movie you could easily imagine having been a stage play. I don’t say that just for the obvious reasons (spare contained setting, characters who do nothing but talk, etc.). “Mass” was written and directed by Fran Kranz, who has never made a movie before but is a veteran actor, and he has crafted the dialogue so that it builds and flows and surges, revealing and concealing at the same time, drawing us to the center of its rhythms. There’s a special pleasure to be had in seeing actors engage in this kind of winding conversational back-and-forth, which on stage can seize and hold you the way music does.

What the medium of movies can add is a sense of voyeuristic intimacy, and that’s the quality that “Mass” has. It’s like a slow-burn group confession that’s also a debate, and it invites us to take a journey into the souls of all four of these people. Sitting with them in that room, we travel somewhere. “Mass” might be described as a talk-therapy thriller built out of memory — a psychodrama, a meditation, and benediction, all at the same time. On some level the film is undeniably a conceit; it takes a highly explosive situation and gives it the rounded contours of a 12-step catharsis. Yet the writing is so deft, and the actors so committed, that by the end you feel you’ve touched the burning core of something real.

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I wouldn’t say that revealing the premise of “Mass” counts as a “spoiler,” but the way Kranz has designed the film, it takes a while to learn who these people are and why they’ve agreed to meet at a small Episcopal church, and there’s more to that delay than meets the eye. The hosts usher the participants into the anteroom with great care, as if they were preparing for a vital peace talk between two nations — and, in a sense, they are. And even if you do know the premise of the movie, it takes a bit of time to figure out which couple is which. That’s all quite intentional. “Mass,” among other things, is an inquiry into questions of guilt and innocence and the surprising ways they can overlap.

When an event as tragic, and horrific, as a school shooting takes place, our primal instinct — as individuals, as a society — is to want to know who or what to blame. How, after all, do we keep it from happening again? In recent years, however, the question of who or what to blame has been increasingly sucked up into the culture wars. The culprit is guns and gun laws! The culprit is mental illness! The culprit is first-person-shooter video games! The culprit is irresponsible parenting! All these issues are alluded to in “Mass,” but that doesn’t mean that it’s a movie about definitive answers — or politics.

The massacre the film is about took place six years before, and we’re given to understand that its aftermath played out on the overbright canvas of media, with all the parents hauled in front of the cameras, interviewed over and over again. Gail ( Martha Plimpton ) and Jay ( Jason Isaacs ), who lost their son in the violent attack (the weapons included not just guns but explosives), have been leaders of the aggrieved, and activists; what happened then now defines their lives. The anguish that can fade but can never die is etched onto their faces, but they introduce themselves to the officious Richard (Reed Birney) and the tremulous Linda ( Ann Dowd ), the parents of the shooter, by presenting them with a small bouquet, a kind of peace offering. These four, it’s implied, have traced one another for years and know all there is to know about the case. So what’s to be gained?

What Gail and Jay want, most of all, is to be able to look Richard and Linda in the eye and ask: Is there something, in hindsight, you knew about your son that should have been a red flag? Something you were in denial of? The boy was troubled, and this has been chronicled; he was bullied. Linda and Richard still disagree about whether they should have moved, taking him out of the woodland setting he loved and into a more suburban place. Yet their refrain, stated in various ways, is: We didn’t know. We couldn’t have known. There’s no way anyone in our position could have known . Gail and Jay don’t believe this, and in different ways — Jay angry and grandstanding, Gail ruled by a grief that thirsts for consolation — they hammer away.

Kranz has drawn forceful performances from all four actors. Plimpton shows you how the bitter, wrathful sting of recrimination can take over a gentle soul, and Isaacs seems to be ritually lacerating himself with a fury he can’t let go of. Birney, with his Midwest corporate blandness, strikes us as suspiciously detached until the scene in which he reveals that he holds the whole awful “choreography” of the shooting in his head, as if that could help him transcend it. And Dowd, in what may be the film’s richest performance, communicates something that seems subversive at first, until we begin to feel the sorrowful terror of it: that she, too, was victimized by who her son was.

What kind of an audience is there for a movie like “Mass”? Given the subject, maybe a modestly sized, intensely self-selective one. Yet the movie announces Fran Kranz as a bold new filmmaker who has earned the right to excavate a subject as sensitive as this one. In “Mass,” he peels away at it, holds it up to the light, and finally sees right into it. He makes a kind of moral promise to the audience, saying: If you don’t flinch, this film won’t either.

Reviewed at Digital Arts, Jan. 18, 2021. Running time: 110 MIN.

Production: A 7 Eccles Street production. Producers: Fran Kranz, Casey Wilder Mott, J.P. Ouellette, Dylan Matlock. Executive producers: Joe Abrams, Nico Falls, Marshall Rawlings, Douglas Matejka.
Crew: Director, screenplay: Fran Kranz. Camera: Ryan Jackson-Healy. Editor: Yang-Hua Hu. Music: Darren Morze.
With: Martha Plimpton, Jason Isaacs, Ann Dowd, Reed Birney, Breeda Wool, Michelle N. Carter, Kagen Albright.

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Mass Is a Brilliantly Acted Look at a School Shooting’s Aftermath

By Richard Lawson

Image may contain Jason Isaacs Martha Plimpton Jacket Coat Clothing Apparel Human Person Plant and Breeda Wool

Were the new film Mass (in limited theaters October 8) an off-Broadway play, something as searing and finely performed as it is would likely have become a mini sensation. Or, at least, it would have caught the eye of many culture vultures in search of bracingly intimate, and pertinent, theater. But it’s not a play: It’s a film vying for national attention amid the clamor of James Bond and other large scale amusements.

Which, ultimately, may be a good thing, if it can find an audience. In film form, Mass can potentially reach a wider swath of people than a play probably ever would, especially in parts of this country where it is perhaps most grimly relatable. The film, from writer-director Fran Kranz , concerns a school shooting, one of those all too common horrors that arrives entirely without warning. Or does it? That is, in some ways, the investigation of the film, which is about two sets of parents trying to sift through what happened, years after it did. Mass exists in the long tail of grief and in the persistent haunt of questions unanswered, and perhaps unanswerable.

It’s not a prurient wallow. Kranz’s writing, and the generous performances of his actors, tend toward grace and compassion; the film directly, urgently grapples with what may be salvable while gently giving space to what isn’t. The tricky conceit of the film is that one pair of parents—Linda ( Ann Dowd ) and Richard ( Reed Birney )—raised the boy who did the shooting. They are, after much official mediation, meeting with the parents, Gail ( Martha Plimpton ) and Jay ( Jason Isaacs ), of one of those killed. Their tentative interaction maneuvers between confrontation and shared lament, staged as one long, almost real-time conversation as this shattered quartet tries to reach an ineffable understanding.

Minus some bordering scenes, the bulk of the film takes place in the church rec room where the parents have agreed to meet. The film is fixed in that one drab place, rooted there even as Kranz’s camera subtly, nimbly moves around the actors. That cramped interiority could easily create something starchy and inert, a pretentious muddle that can’t survive under such a close gaze. But Kranz, an actor making his writing and directing debut, keeps the conversation compelling. It sounds strange to say of a film about such impossible sorrow, but Mass is thoroughly entertaining. Or maybe engrossing is a better word. Its incisive dialogue and nuanced performances demand our attention, inviting us into a roiling weather system of guilt and sadness. The experience proves oddly nourishing, clarifying.

As the parents of the boy, Hayden, who killed 9 classmates and one teacher before turning his gun on himself, Dowd and Birney embody different but complementary ideas of how such a thing might be processed. Richard has his prickly defenses about the care and attention Hayden received before it all went wrong, while Linda is more willing to explore the gray areas of Hayden’s character. But Richard also readily admits that he “failed,” while Linda won’t really let herself identify, or at least express, any concrete mistakes. They are a jumble of contradictions and agonized-over histories, just as most people are. Birney and Dowd sensitively illustrate the tension between confusion and certitude, their willingness and their weariness in responding to questions they’ve asked themselves a thousand times.

There are moments in Mass when one might wonder how “realistic” it is that these characters speak in such eloquent paragraphs. But the reality is probably that parents like these would have gone over these matters night after night, year after year. This meeting is meant to give formalized shape to what they’ve learned or come to understand in all that intervening time. Their deliberate, careful phrasing has been long in development. Even in one heartrending moment when Gail is asked to tell an impromptu story about her son, Evan, you can see her rifling through the file of well-worn anecdotes and picking a poignant, simple favorite. These people are all too well-versed in their grief.

In that scene, if you can call any specific point in the film a scene, Plimpton does extraordinary things, as she does throughout. She and Isaacs, showing facets of his ability I’ve not seen before, have a natural rapport, playing a couple that has stuck together through the ruin and now, with bone-deep exhaustion, are ready to make some kind of peace with what happened. Has that been achieved by the end? In some ways, yes. The kin of the killer and of the killed form a tentative, maybe fleeting bond in their mutual loss. But Kranz is also wise enough to suggest that some psychological wounds are irreparable, while others could come creeping out of dormancy at any point in these characters’ future.

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Mass does offer some solace, though. And there is the exhilaration of its precise execution, its sober competency, its eschewing of sermon and sanctimony. Kranz briefly touches on issues like gun control before turning back inward, letting the political hover at the edges but never too easily coloring the specific motivations of these four distinct people. He employs a crucial restraint, which allows his sterling actors to elucidate huge emotion without also having to prove some didactic point. Thoughtful and harrowing, Mass is a difficult wonder. I’d still like to see it on stage someday. For now, I’ll urge you all to go see the movie.

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‘mass’: film review | sundance 2021.

Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Ann Dowd and Reed Birney play the respective parents of one of the victims and the perpetrator of a school shooting in a face-to-face encounter in Fran Kranz's chamber drama.

By David Rooney

David Rooney

Chief Film Critic

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Debuting writer-director Fran Kranz ‘s years as an actor show in the powerful performances he draws from his tight ensemble in Mass , a drama of searing intimacy that trades the political for the personal in its reflections on gun violence and mental health. With laser focus and unflinching emotional candor, the film approaches the seemingly unending horror of school shootings in America from the viewpoint of devastated parents on both sides of the tragedy, six years later. It’s a harrowing watch, but a cathartic one, with each of the four superb principal actors delivering scenes of wrenching release.

In addition to his career in film and television (he was part of the unofficial Joss Whedon repertory company in Dollhouse , The Cabin in the Woods and Much Ado About Nothing ), Kranz has notched up solid theater credits, including the Mike Nichols-directed Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman led by Philip Seymour Hoffman and Andrew Garfield. His no-frills first feature could very easily have been a play, though Kranz applies minimal stylistic embellishments to give visual life to the predominantly single-setting, talk-driven piece.

Venue : Sundance Film Festival (Premieres) Release date : Friday, Oct. 8 Cast : Jason Isaacs, Ann Dowd, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney, Breeda Wool, Michelle N. Carter, Kagen Albright Director-screenwriter : Fran Kranz

Most of the action takes place around a table in a downstairs room for community group use at a small Episcopal church; it was shot in Hailey, Idaho, though the town is unnamed in the script. Parish workers Judy (Breeda Wool) and Anthony (Kagen Albright) get busy arranging a table and chairs, and setting out snacks and beverages before the arrival of strictly-business social worker Kendra (Michelle N. Carter), who surveys the setup for potential triggers. These secondary figures then retreat as the movie becomes fundamentally a four-hander.

Tension in the car between one couple, Gail ( Martha Plimpton ) and Jay ( Jason Isaacs ), indicates the fortitude required of them just to come this far. Gail’s terse manner and a few half-choked words reveal that she’s still unsure whether she can go through with the carefully planned meeting. Jay’s sorrowful eyes settle on a red ribbon tied to a barbed wire fence on the edge of a field backed by mountains. That image recurs later to striking effect as the aspect ratio widens to indicate a shift in the perspective of four people previously locked in their own chambers of grief.

The awkwardness in the room is palpable when Richard (Reed Birney) and Linda ( Ann Dowd ) arrive, despite polite small talk about the drive to get there and the arrangement of flowers Linda has made for Gail. Unsure of how to proceed with a subject still too painful to discuss, they resort to methods suggested in advance by Kendra, such as sharing photographs. But it’s not long before tightly wound Gail bristles at the artificial pleasantries.

Kranz’s screenplay parcels out details with unhurried economy, allowing us to piece together specifics about the death of Gail and Jay’s son in an attack involving explosives and firearms, carried out with unsparing cruelty by the son of Richard and Linda before taking his own life.

Full credits

Venue: Sundance Film Festival (Premieres) Production company: 7 Eccles Street Distribution: Bleecker Street Cast: Jason Isaacs, Ann Dowd, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney, Breeda Wool, Michelle N. Carter, Kagen Albright Director-screenwriter: Fran Kranz Producers: Fran Kranz, Casey Wilder Mott, J.P. Ouellette, Dylan Matlock Executive producers: Joe Abrams, Nico Falls, Marshall Rawlings, Douglas Matejka Director of photography: Ryan Jackson-Healy Production designers: Lindsey Moran, Mia Lyon Cherp Costume designer: Michele Minailo Music: Darren Morze Editor: Yang-Hua Hu Casting: Henry Russell Bergstein, Allison Estrin Sales: CAA/Gersh

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Mass review – impeccably acted school shooter reckoning

The parents of a teen shooter meet the parents of a boy he shot in Fran Kranz’s intelligent, sensitive drama with an unexpected ending

M ass is a wonderfully acted, if claustrophobic, ordeal of emotional pain. Perhaps against the odds, it achieves in its final moments a breakthrough of understanding and acceptance – and moves beyond its rather theatrically contrived confrontation, which may have been inspired by Yasmina Reza’s play God of Carnage, filmed by Roman Polanski in 2011 . But it’s impossible not to be affected by the sincerity of this debut from actor-turned-director Fran Kranz, whose film shows that the subject of school shootings and their aftermath can be treated without the ironised horror of, say, Lionel Shriver’s We Need to Talk About Kevin .

The scene is a church in Idaho that has evidently offered its premises as the venue – a safe space, perhaps – for a healing encounter between the parents of a boy killed six years previously in a school shooting and the parents of the boy who killed him. (Franz allows us to register that there happens to be a slightly truculent young man volunteering at the church, who might resemble both of the boys.) Quite aside from the grief and despair, there is bad feeling about announcements made at the time through lawyers and the media, and now everyone needs closure.

Linda (Ann Dowd) and Richard (Reed Birney) are the shooter’s mum and dad: Linda is in agony, needing absolution from the other couple, or from her husband, or from God, or from the universe; Richard is more buttoned-up, angry, suspicious of the emotional loss of control required of him and incidentally also sceptical about the need for gun control. Jay (Jason Isaacs) and Gail (Martha Plimpton) are tensely resolved that this meeting is their only way forward, ready to listen and forgive, but clearly very wary of any suggestion that their son’s death is somehow equivalent to the death of his attacker.

Mass is performed with impeccable intelligence and sensitivity, although sometimes it feels like an exercise in award-winning acting. But I admit it: the final, unexpected dialogue scene, though arguably as stagey and showy as everything else, does deliver a punch.

Drama films
Jason Isaacs

Screen Rant

Mass review: a heartwrenching, pertinent drama that has major issues.

Mass won't be remembered as a culturally significant film; yet, one leaves the movie with the overwhelming feeling that it is important viewing.

Written and directed by Fran Kranz — in his directorial debut no less — 2021's Mass centers on an uncomfortably tragic premise: parents meeting face-to-face years after a tragic event irrevocably shattered their lives. One set of parents lost their son in a school shooting incident. The other two are the parents of the shooter. Mass may not be an enjoyable experience, nor will it likely be remembered as a culturally significant film; yet, one leaves the movie with the overwhelming feeling that it is important viewing.

Mass stars Reed Birney and Ann Dowd as Richard and Linda, and Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton as Jay and Gail Perry. The majority of the feature's runtime is focused on these four characters, confronting each other in a prearranged meeting that unfolds in (what feels like) real-time. From the awkward small-talk to the inevitable emotional outbursts, the ebb and flow of the dialogue feels impossibly natural, putting the audience in the moment for compelling — but absolutely devastating — drama.

The leads' performances are the core of Mass , and the sheer talent on display in this film makes up for the sometimes weak direction. Each parent offers a distinct, fully realized character. Richard is a defensive workaholic, and there are hints that the shooting cost him his marriage to the sweet — if passive — Linda. Gail is still unspeakably angry at what happened, while her husband Jay has funneled all his frustration and hurt into gun-control activism. There's a bit of contrivance at play: the parents feel, at times, archetypal rather than organic, and this results in some of the movie's problematic dialogue. Overall, however, the meeting unfurls as one might imagine such an exchange would. The results are excruciating.

Birney, Dowd, Isaacs, and Plimpton are all in top form in Mass , each offering complex characterizations of grief. The movie is at its best when the focus is on the parents reacting to each other. The dynamic is deeply uncomfortable at first, but the chemistry between the four is undeniable. There are many big moments — the four actors all get their own heavy, emotionally wrought monologues — but the quiet moments are equally as impressive. This is the kind of writing where what goes unsaid is as important as what's explicit, and much is communicated by looks, gestures, and silent pauses.

Mass keeps the audience's attention by gradually revealing details of the shooting. Although there are occasionally exterior shots hinting at the events — particularly shots of ribbons tied to a fence, which is a nod to the Columbine High School massacre — Kranz makes the wise choice not to dramatize the tragedy. The movie is largely restricted to the often-claustrophobic room in the church, with the dramatic stakes coming solely from the emotional tension. Rather than a clunky exposition dump, the details of the event in question are revealed little by little, drawing in the audience's curiosity and keeping the narrative compelling. The approach to the material often feels like theater — which is as much a strength as it is a potential flaw.

Kranz's direction during the actual meeting is adequate, and the dialogue is strong — but the movie needs some revision. There are flashes of brilliance: for example, the long shots within the room, showing walls on either side, create a suffocating, restrictive mood that elevates the material. However, there is extraneous material that drags down the rest of the film. The entire opening sequence adds nothing to the narrative and could have been excised. The story begins with third-party Judy (Breeda Wool) setting up her church for the meeting, with the assistance of teenager Anthony. While the intention was likely to ease audiences into the story and to use Judy as a device to deliver exposition, there's little in that first ten minutes that's crucial for setting up the story, and including it does nothing but stall the narrative momentum out of the gate.

The other major issue with Mass — which needs to be addressed — is its unfortunate perpetuation of myths and half-truths regarding the mental state and motivations of real-life mass murderers. The movie is progressive in how it sheds a light on the ways in which the parents of young violent criminals may be unfairly vilified following a massacre; however, the underlying message is that the shooter was mentally unstable, was bullied at school, and played violent video games. These are the same myths about the Columbine shooters that were widely shared following the tragedy but have been thoroughly disproven— particularly the influence of video games. Regardless, Mass is an emotionally harrowing film centered on a horrendous premise that — unfortunately — still remains pertinent today, over 20 years after Columbine. To Kranz's credit, the director manages to find some semblance of catharsis in the process, despite a few flaws and its utterly devastating premise.

Next: The Auschwitz Report Review: A Deeply Effective & Intense Historical Drama

Mass was released theatrically on October 8, 2021. It is rated PG-13 for thematic content and brief strong language and is 110 minutes long.

Action/Adventure
Children's/Family
Documentary/Reality
Amazon Prime Video

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Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Mass’ on Hulu, a Single-Location, Single-Conversation Drama That’s as Vigorous as it is Essential

Where to stream:.

Mass (2021)

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Now on Hulu after premiering on VOD in late 2021, Mass is, for the bulk of its run time, a single-location drama about a single conversation occurring among four people. First-time director Fran Kranz assembled a veteran cast of career character actors – Jason Isaacs and Martha Plimpton as one couple, and Ann Dowd and Reed Birney as another – to chew on one multifaceted topic for nearly two hours, and the result is an under-the-radar critical success that should play well in the intimate setting of home streaming.

MASS : STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Judy (Breeda Wool) is fussing. She’s a church volunteer trying to set up a room just right for some new visitors. She finds a nice room, arranges the chairs, makes some coffee, gets out some food, puts a box of tissues here. Kendra (Michelle N. Carter) set up the visitors’ meeting; she tells Judy the room is OK, rearranges the chairs, says coffee is good, that’s probably too much food and the tissue box should go over there . They’re nervous, and Kendra is prickly in response to Judy’s mildly overzealous attempt to be friendly and accommodating. What exactly is about to occur goes unsaid. They’d rather not bring it up, so they tiptoe around the topic like it’s a patch of thin ice over dark fathoms.

Gail (Plimpton) and Jay (Isaacs) sit in their car outside the church. She doesn’t know if she can do this. Just drive away, she snaps, and Jay pulls out of the parking lot. He stops the car down the road a stretch. The therapist said this would be good, he asserts, and she agrees. It’s just incredibly difficult. He backs out and drives toward the church and the camera stays and lingers on a nearby fence, where a red ribbon flaps in the breeze.

Gail and Jay arrive and Kendra is slightly chilly and businesslike and Judy is kind and friendly and all but bent over backwards. Richard (Birney) and Linda (Dowd) are next to arrive and introductions are awkward but pleasant in a strained sort of way. Linda gives Gail some flowers; she picked and arranged them herself and first they’re in the middle of the table but they seem in the way so they’re moved. They need a lot of open space between them. The couples sit down and share small talk about their children, and that’s awkward too. There’s a comment about how this is a good thing, because they’d only previously talked through their attorneys.

They converse around what they should be talking about, circling each other, and it’s tempting to say they’re like fighters sizing each other up, but that’s not wholly accurate. Gail comes off as someone whose heartbreak has rendered her nearly silent. Jay seems reasonable and calm to an extent, but capable of reaching a rolling boil. Linda is generally warm, an almost grandmotherly type, but with an omnipresent sense of melancholy, and Richard, a straightforward matter-of-fact speaker with an intense stare, tends to step on her sentences. They don’t always fill the air. Pregnant pauses give birth to the elephant in the room: Linda and Richard’s son killed Gail and Jay’s son. School shooting. Six years ago.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: The body language, mannerisms and conversations in Mass splinter into political and private topicalities like 12 Angry Men – and it has more in common with The Breakfast Club than we might realize.

Performance Worth Watching: Plimpton and Dowd cover a wide, complex range of emotions with great empathy and humanity.

Memorable Dialogue: Linda: “You say you want to heal – we all do. Is this how?”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Mass unfurls in real time like a one-act play. The characters talk about the unthinkable with overwhelming intensity. It’s grueling to watch these people be wrung out like ragged dishcloths, but it feels like a necessary experience, an exercise in stylized realism digging into one of the most debilitating dysfunctions of modern American life. We see not a single moment from the key event, but the movie is nevertheless harrowing in the way it stares into the crater, contending with the aftermath.

In concept and construction, the film is certainly contrived, e.g., giving each of the four principals a moment to air out their grief and rage, and in some ways, it’s all but a feature-length Oscar clip. But Kranz’s stripped-down direction allows his actors to find truth and honesty in his fine-tuned screenplay, which never seeks to exploit the characters’ pain for the sake of melodrama. Instead, cast and filmmaker seek to understand that pain, which opens up a microcosm of the way society functions, the way people – the way Americans – communicate, getting past one barrier after another on a quest for, if not answers, then compassion.

These people are at times wide-open and closed-off, condescending and humble, aggressive and defensive, logical and histrionic, confident one moment and second-guessing themselves the next – all understandably so. They work through their desperation and regret; reveal their broken hearts; wrestle with concepts of right and wrong, nature and nurture, reason and faith. The big questions and minute details all get heavy-bagged. Is any of this doing any good? We have to hope so. The film is honest and forthright and, like so many things in life, when it’s over, even if all the problems of the country and world aren’t solved, and maybe never will be solved, we realize it inspires some food for thought, some personal psychological progress and some necessary catharsis.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Mass is a tough watch, but you can’t deny the power of its drama and its value as a reflection of American society.

Will you stream or skip the hard to watch, but superbly acted drama #Mass on VOD? #SIOSI — Decider (@decider) January 10, 2022

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com .

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clock This article was published more than 2 years ago

The movie ‘Mass’ is wrenching to watch, but also utterly absorbing

In a sparsely appointed meeting room of an Episcopal church somewhere out West, two couples gather, doffing overcoats and making small talk. The mood is wary, tense. They sit. And in the conversation that ensues — as the point of their encounter becomes clear — what begins as an impressive exercise in acting and character development assumes the contours of something bigger, more seismic and emotionally shattering.

“Mass” marks the writing-directing debut of actor Fran Kranz, who brings a tasteful and judicious eye to a project that could be easily sundered by melodrama and opportunism. It turns out that Gail and Jay (Martha Plimpton and Jason Isaacs) have agreed to meet with Linda and Richard (Ann Dowd and Reed Birney) to discuss a school shooting that transpired six years earlier. Each couple lost a son in the tragedy, and all are being haunted, in some way, by denial, guilt, rage and unresolved grief.

Kranz doles out information with such care and thoughtfulness in “Mass” that more precise descriptions don’t do the film justice: As the confrontation plays out in real time, viewers become privy to the distinct, often diametrically opposed, perspectives of the participants. Plimpton’s Gail, a spiky combination of simmering anger and raw pain, seems to be the polar opposite of Dowd’s Linda, who has clearly done more interior work toward healing and understanding. Isaacs’s Jay has processed his loss by throwing himself into action and activism, which bears more than a little resemblance to the task-oriented conventionality of Birney’s Richard.

Those descriptions fit up to a point, at least until these complex, sometimes contradictory characters begin to shed their defensive layers. What makes “Mass” such an absorbing and ultimately moving film is the way Kranz constantly goes deeper, his spare, unadorned visual language allowing words and behavior — channeled through four extraordinarily brave performances — to do their revelatory work. Although it’s true that “Mass” resembles a theater piece in its style and structure, it takes cinema to bore into peoples’ most tender psyches with such intensity; similar in some ways to Yasmina Reza’s 2008 play “ God of Carnage ,” Kranz approaches his portrait of moral injury and its sequelae with a carefully calibrated mix of ruthlessness and compassion.

With the help of his outstanding ensemble — each of whom delivers a breathtaking performance in his or her own right — Kranz also punctures the misapprehension that the practice of restorative justice, which focuses on healing, accountability and meaningful restitution, is less rigorous or demanding than the traditional adversarial system of punishment and retribution. As the conversation in “Mass” reaches its cathartic climax, it becomes clear just how agonizing it is to stay in the room, despite every impulse to seek comfort in the resentments, beliefs and self-flagellation that the characters have resorted to for solace.

Reportedly, Kranz considered several titles before settling on “Mass,” which can be interpreted in myriad ways: On its surface, the film asks if forgiveness is possible in the wake of unspeakable injustice and violence. At its core, “Mass” exerts the power of ritual at its most reflective and galvanizing, reveling in human connection at its most arduous, persistent and sublime.

PG-13. At Landmark’s E Street Cinema and the Angelika Film Center Mosaic. Contains mature thematic content and brief strong language. 111 minutes.

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Common sense media reviewers.

Powerful, stage-like drama about impact of school shooting.

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Amid difficult subject matter and complicated feel

Both sets of parents clearly loved their sons unco

The four main characters are White and seem to be

Detailed conversations about a student's bombing/s

Married couple embraces out of comfort, not romanc

One use of "f--king."

Discussion of Call of Duty and how violent it is.

Positive Messages

Amid difficult subject matter and complicated feelings, the movie promotes communication, compassion, and empathy. Encourages people to talk openly about their losses and to try to heal by understanding and forgiving one another.

Positive Role Models

Both sets of parents clearly loved their sons unconditionally. They listen to one another, even when it's difficult, and they want to know more about their respective families and upbringings. Jay has dedicated himself to advocacy, and Gail seeks to move forward without making the shooting the focus of their lives.

Diverse Representations

The four main characters are White and seem to be middle class. One Black supporting character is briefly shown in the beginning and end. All characters are familiar with Christianity (given the setting) but don't necessarily identify as Christians.

Did we miss something on diversity? Suggest an update.

Violence & Scariness

Detailed conversations about a student's bombing/shooting in a high school. Two fathers discuss the specifics of how various students died/were killed (including how their parents later saw the blood and the taped outlines of victims' bodies). A parent recalls a couple of times when their child's behavior was disturbing.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Married couple embraces out of comfort, not romance.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Products & Purchases

Parents need to know.

Parents need to know that Mass is a play-like drama about the parents of a school-shooting perpetrator coming together with the parents of one of his victims for a reconciliation meeting. It ends up with all four parents (played by award-winning actors Jason Isaacs , Martha Plimpton , Ann Dowd, and Reed Birney ) making heartfelt, heartbreaking declarations and recollections. Expect frequent references to the mass shooting in both general and detailed ways -- like when the shooter's father describes every victim's fatal wounds, or when the other father talks about how hard his son tried to live before being shot in the neck. There's one use of the word "f--king." Families with teens who watch together will be able to discuss their thoughts about gun violence and laws, school shootings, mental health, and adolescent pscyhopathy. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

Where to Watch

Videos and photos.

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What's the Story?

MASS takes place in an Episcopalian church meeting room, where two couples are gathering for a reconciliation conversation. Although at first it's unclear how Jay ( Jason Isaacs ) and Gail ( Martha Plimpton ) are connected to Richard ( Reed Birney ) and Linda ( Ann Dowd ), it's eventually explained that Richard and Linda's son killed Jay and Gail's son in a school shooting (in which he also killed himself). What starts off as a polite conversation turns into a heated, painful rehashing of what-ifs, an exchanging of blame and apologies, a diagnosing of the deceased, and a plea for acknowledging the humanity of a perpetrator as well as his victims. All but a few scenes take place in the same room, where the couples tell stories, ask for unknowable explanations, and tearfully discuss the gruesome events that led them to this room.

Is It Any Good?

Fran Kranz's directorial debut is a single-set, stage-like showcase of two pairs of grieving parents having an unimaginably difficult conversation; the four stars all give riveting performances. Much more effective than the adaptation The Dinner (which also highlighted two sets of parents having a fraught conversation), Mass is at times reminiscent of the tense, unforgettable conversation between Bobby Sands (Michael Fassbender) and Father Moran (Liam Cunningham) in Hunger , when there's more to the subtext than you see, and it's clear that the characters are having much more than an ordinary conversation. Unlike Hunger , Mass takes place almost completely in the church meeting room where both sets of parents attempt to have a healing discussion about the school shooting that ended up with both sons dead, one at the hands of the other. The only other people in the movie beyond the four main characters are two slightly nervous church employees setting up the room and Kendra (Michelle N. Carter), a no-nonsense woman who's arranging the scope and logistics of the meeting.

Watching the two sets of parents (it's implied, although never said explicitly, that Richard and Linda are no longer together) discuss their dead sons is powerful and poignant. Kranz, who wrote the script, isn't interested in the politics of school shootings (which are hinted at but never explored) like gun control (Richard and Linda never owned firearms; their son stole them from his best friend), but in the feelings and the motivation behind the act. Gail wants Richard and Linda to pinpoint exactly when their son started to have homicidal thoughts. Linda wants Gail to allow her to discuss memories of her son, because despite what he did, she still loves him and remembers special times with her little boy. Richard is alternately aloof and straightforward, and Jay, it's revealed, wonders whether anyone or anything could stop a school shooting if the shooter is a psychopath. The movie doesn't offer any easy answers, instead immersing audiences in the visceral pain the parents are experiencing. It's a thought-provoking and brilliantly acted film that feels like a stage play turned into a movie.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about the discussion of violence in Mass . Does describing gun violence have as much of an impact as seeing it occur in a movie? Is it disturbing to see distraught parents discuss their children's traumatic and violent deaths?

What are the movie's lessons? Do you consider any of the characters role models ? What character strengths do they display?

Do you agree that parents have a special intuition that should allow them to know, deep down in their hearts, if their children are violent or frightening or depressed? Teens: How can you ask for help if you or a friend is experiencing suicidal ideation or homicidal thoughts?

Discuss whether perpetrators should be allowed to be memorialized along with their victims. What are the reasons this is rarely done?

Both sets of parents discuss the violent video games that Hayden had played. Hayden's parents thought it was a way for him to socialize with others online and didn't think the games were problematic. Does exposure to violent movies or video games make kids more aggressive?

Movie Details

In theaters : October 8, 2021
On DVD or streaming : January 11, 2022
Cast : Ann Dowd , Jason Isaacs , Martha Plimpton , Reed Birney
Director : Fran Kranz
Inclusion Information : Female actors
Studio : Bleecker Street
Genre : Drama
Topics : Activism , High School
Character Strengths : Communication , Compassion , Empathy
Run time : 110 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : thematic content and brief strong language
Last updated : June 20, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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DVD & Streaming

Content Caution

In Theaters

October 8, 2021
Jason Isaacs as Jay; Martha Plimpton as Gail; Ann Dowd as Linda; Reed Birney as Richard; Breeda Wool as Judy; Kagen Albright as Anthony; Michelle N. Carter as Kendra

Home Release Date

January 11, 2022

Distributor

Bleecker Street

Movie Review

Our lives are molded by moments, shaped by seconds. What happens in an instant can be felt for eternity.

It took Hayden just a matter of minutes to destroy so many lives. Some he ended outright when he chucked a bomb into a high school classroom and opened fire. Other victims will carry the scars for a lifetime. But some of those scars are more obvious than others.

Jay and Gail lost their son that day—their athletic, popular loving boy, Evan. They know everything they can about how he died. They saw the tape that marked his body. They saw the trail of blood.

But they don’t know why .

Maybe that’s why they agreed to come. To sit on wire-frame chairs in a modest room in a modest church. To talk, face to face, with another set of parents: Hayden’s mom and dad.

“Tell me about your son,” Gail says with hard eyes and crossed arms. “I want to know everything .”

But Linda and Richard have only so much to say. Because, really, they want to know, too. They want to know why their shy little boy grew into a killer.

“We don’t know what happened,” Linda said, her face red with tears. “We still don’t know.”

Hayden destroyed many lives inside that school that terrible, terrible day. He destroyed many outside, too. Four of the destroyed sit in that modest little room in that modest little church—rubbing their scars, picking their scabs, hurting.

But maybe, under the pain, healing, too.

Positive Elements

That’s where we must begin this review in earnest—at the end. At the healing.

Mass is about pain unimaginable to most of us. It’s about grief and shame and regret and lives shattered in so many ways. This meeting takes place about six years after the mass shooting, but the wounds still feel so fresh.

But we hear that some, painfully, are beginning to move on. Evan’s little sister, after years of being unable to sleep, is apparently looking at colleges. Hayden’s older brother and his wife have a baby on the way.

The two couples we meet are fighting to find some semblance of closure, too—to finally find the wherewithal to move on. This face-to-face meeting is part of that journey (one encouraged by Gail and Jay’s counselor, Kendra). And even though Jay and Gail know better than to expect answers, they desperately want them. To understand the why.

We understand how they feel, of course. But how can one answer the unanswerable? The solution, it seems, is deeper and harder—rooted in painful honesty, hard-earned understanding and, finally, perhaps a hint of grace.

Spiritual Elements

The title of the film offers a double meaning. Mass refers to the mass killing, of course. But it also reminds us that this meeting takes place within the holy confines of a church. It’s fitting, given many of the questions and solutions in play here are, essentially, spiritual ones.

The film reminds us often of Mass’s sanctified setting. Almost the first and last images we see are of the church’s brick steeple. The church itself is dotted with the detritus of many a small church: Signs in the hallway advertise small church get-togethers; a worker folds programs; a piano teacher and his student practice playing hymns in the sanctuary. We see Bibles on tables, kids’ wax-paper artwork designed to look like stained glass. And in the room where most of the movie takes place, a cross with a stylized Jesus hangs huge on a wall.

When asked if the room looks all right, Jay quips, “Table, chairs, Jesus watching us. It’s great.”

But Jay’s not religious: He says so. He says that in the wake of the shooting, the “whole church movement thing made me so angry,” and adds that you can “trust the Catholic church to come up with the most bankrupt response,” mistaking the church he’s in as part of that denomination.

But the church is Episcopalian—as a church worker makes clear through a little “Christian humor.” The worker comes across as well-meaning but a bit clueless. In trying to make her visitors comfortable, she often seems to do exactly the opposite—perhaps a sly indictment on church itself.

We hear references to other churches as well, including the fact that none of them would memorialize Hayden in the shooting’s aftermath. And even secular elements seem to come with a hint of spirituality. Kendra, the counselor, wears a white scarf against a dark outfit, making for a rather priestly appearance. And people gather in a moment of reflective silence—with some closing their eyes as if in prayer.

[ Spoiler Warning ] The film takes a more explicitly spiritual turn toward the end, where forgiveness becomes a catalyst for great change and Gail expresses a belief in an afterlife. “I know I’ll see him,” she says. “I know I’ll hold him against me if I can just forgive—if I can just love again.” And then, as the couple prepares to leave, unbelieving Jay hears the church choir practice. He’s moved to tears.

Sexual Content

Linda, Hayden’s mother, mentions that one of the only people whom Hayden seemed to connect with was a math teacher. “He loved him,” Linda says. “I don’t know what the connection was or what it was so great, but he made him feel confident when he didn’t.” The words themselves feel innocent, but the reactions of Gail and Jay (and almost the apologetic way in which Linda responds) suggest, perhaps , a bit of suspicion that the relationship between Hayden and the teacher wasn’t necessarily appropriate.

Richard and Linda say that Hayden wasn’t planned. Though never explicitly stated, it seems like the two are separated or divorced, with Richard hoping to catch a flight out of town that afternoon. Gail mentions that she and Jay’s daughter is now dating.

Violent Content

Visually, the movie is free of violence (unless you count the slamming of a tissue box as “violent.”) But we hear the parents talk, in detail, about the school shooting and its aftermath. We learn how victims died and what their last moments were like. We’re told about what the school looked like afterward, with tape outlining where the bodies once lay.

We’re told something of Hayden’s childhood, too. Early on, he’d carry snails in a jar. But when the snails died, he replaced them with paper replicas. We’re told that as he grew older, he spent more and more time online, especially playing Call of Duty and other violent video games—habits that Jay believes must’ve contributed to Hayden’s apparent lack of empathy. Hayden apparently had some violent outbursts and expressed both suicidal and homicidal thoughts—thoughts his counselors at the time felt these exclamations were pretty normal for a boy his age. Not so normal? Building a pipe bomb, which he did and set off even before the shooting.

We hear some debate revolving around the issue of gun control and mental health.

Crude or Profane Language

One f-word and two s-words. We also hear one use of the word “h—,” three misuses of God’s name and at least five abuses of Jesus’ name.

Drug and Alcohol Content

Hayden was prescribed drugs as a way to deal with his mental issues and depression, and we hear some references to them. We also hear references to alcohol and substance abuse groups that meet in the church.

Other Negative Elements

Hayden was troubled, of course. We hear how misbehavior manifested in his relationship with his parents—how he’d often lie to them and how they’d all sometimes fight. We also hear that Hayden was bullied quite a bit, too, though we don’t hear any specifics in how that bullying manifested itself. We learn that Hayden stole the guns he used from a friends’ house.

We don’t see a drop of blood in Mass . We don’t hear a single bullet fired. But this quiet film may be among the year’s most devastating.

This film is hard to watch. From the opening moments of awkward conversation to the honest agony we see later, Mass is in its own way more difficult to watch than a slasher flick. Here, bodies don’t bleed: souls do. And, of course, you’ve got a bit of profanity to navigate here as well, too.

But while Mass can be mighty difficult to watch, there’s more to unpack here. The film itself reminds us that sometimes, what’s hard can also be good.

Jay and Gail, Linda and Richard are engaged in some incredibly wrenching conversations. And even then, their words surely can’t touch the pain and horror and guilt and anger they feel. But as they talk, they change. Crossed arms relax. Tears flow. The conversation changes from grenades thrown across battle lines to connection. Understanding. A shared sense of grief.

It doesn’t make everything better, of course. The dead are still dead. The agony of loss is still alive. But we see hints of healing—a bit of green poking through the frozen ground after a long, hard, winter. We see a hard-earned hope begin to grow.

Folks who’ve dealt with unimaginable loss know how difficult it is to move on. Some never do. Mass tells us it’s not easy, but it also gives us the ingredients to push forward: tears. Honesty. And ultimately, forgiveness. Because sometimes perfect justice is elusive. Sometimes making things right just isn’t possible. The hardest of truths might be this: Sometimes, we must let go of our anger, no matter how justified, no matter how righteous.

Sometimes, we must let go.

Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.

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Movie Review – Mass (2021)

January 20, 2022 by Robert Kojder

Mass , 2021.

Written and Directed by Fran Kranz. Starring Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Breeda Wool, Kagen Albright, and Michelle N. Carter.

Years after a tragic act of violence, the parents of both the victim and the perpetrator meet face-to-face.

One needs extra hands to count the ways Mass could go wrong and come across as exploitative trite of the lowest order. Written and directed by actor turned filmmaker Fran Kranz, the story is centered on a sitdown between two sets of parents inside a private room of an Episcopalian church. The purpose for such a meeting is group healing following extended individual grieving of a senseless tragedy not unlike horrific events heard about in the real world. As such, the topic at hand is so heavy and sensitive (I can imagine some victims never wanting to go near this movie for fear it’s going to hit so close to home that it elicits or reawakens a different kind of internal pain) that it’s miraculous Fran Kranz pulls it off.

Richard and Linda (Reed Birney and Ann Dowd, respectively) are the parents of a high schooler who committed a heinous act of violence. They are faced with lawsuits everywhere they turn and have had their lives turned upside down, but have come to find the courage to meet and talk to the families affected most by their son’s disturbing actions. Richard is the more composed of the two (he’s able to discuss his son in a very matter of fact verbalization not necessarily because he’s numb to it all, instead that he has spent an unquantifiable amount of time going over the past, the crime, and the aftermath to the point where he knows every cold-blooded detail). In contrast, Linda struggles to separate the son she knows and loves from the monster he became.

It is also easy to shame these parents for not doing enough to prevent the atrocity from an outsider’s perspective. Of course, there’s always that justifiable knee-jerk reaction to condemn America’s gun problem and failure of a supportive mental health system. However, when everyone is in the room making awkward and challenging therapeutic conversation, Martha Plimpton’s Gail says she didn’t come here to discuss politics (a powerful early scene, speaking of what’s to come, in the car suggests that she was unsure of going through with the sitdown at all) while her husband Jay (Jason Isaacs) raises his voice on both issues. Mass is not here to preach how to solve any of this devastatingly pointless violence (although it’s obvious everyone wishes guns are not so readily accessible); it’s first and foremost focused on these four individuals working their way through discussing their children while inevitably recounting the act of violence itself hoping to find some meaning or catharsis or closure.

Wisely, the characters are vague with details so as not to implicate a real tragedy. And unlike plenty of other movies tackling the subject (too often it comes across as unnecessary shock value), the violence itself is never shown, even when these characters get to the most graphic parts. Fran Kranz only cares about the victims in the room. Fortunately for him, he has assembled a group of reputable veteran actors that express an overwhelming amount of hurt, juxtaposed and turned against one another, that’s dripping in as much authenticity as the number of tears shed on screen. Even when Mass combusts into the men yelling at one another, it never feels overwrought or manipulative; the script delicately builds to that eruption so that it’s a natural pain overwhelmingly expressed coming from different headspaces.

All four characters bring up different possibilities that could have contributed to their son’s monstrously inexcusable behavior, whether it be moving and changing schools, bullying, incorrectly addressed mental health concerns, popularity inside a faction of school misfits, and the one that resonated with me most in an unexpected fashion, the realism of violent video games. Singling out the gaming industry as a scapegoat for such evil behavior will never sit right with me, considering the multiple psychological studies showing little to no correlation between the two. Still, in Mass , when Jay is lambasting military first-person shooters such as Call of Duty , at that moment, there is solidarity even without agreeing. No one has answers to what happened, but there’s empathy to be found when someone, in their indescribable suffering that most people will never be able to relate to, is casting inaccurate blame because they want some cut and dry rationalization to obtain closure. I didn’t dislike Jay bringing that up; I tried to understand his perspective and place of pain.

That also summarizes Mass as a whole; it doesn’t matter who is right, who could have done more, who makes the best points, or who are hurting the most. The theatricality grabs hold of you (as the conversation transitions into understandable hostility, the camera movements become increasingly shaky and jerky, presumably to equally fluster the audience) from the early uneasiness to escalation to diffusion.

While the meat of Mass is astoundingly acted and relentlessly emotionally penetrating, there’s a frustrating, unnecessary prologue that goes on for roughly 20 minutes as a pair of church workers (Breeda Wool and Kagen Albright) prepare the room for the sitdown. On the one hand, it does allow some additional room for tension to emerge and a sense of spatial awareness (everything from the stained glass windows to the placement of the box of tissues is drawn attention to), but they also go on talking about their personal lives and other happenings going on in the building. Likewise, barring one final and phenomenally delivered story from Ann Dowd, the resolution also drags on. Nevertheless, those 90 minutes in between are a searing actor’s showcase confronting four variations of inescapable misery. Have your box of tissues at the ready.

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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Review: Anne Hathaway and Nicolas Galitzine shine in deliciously swoony 'The Idea of You'

Anne Hathaway is all kinds of wonderful.

In movies, especially romcoms in which two people fall helplessly, heedlessly in love, auditioning actors are asked to do a chemistry read to show they can ignite sparks. To judge by "The Idea of You," a deliciously swoony meeting of bodies and minds now streaming on Prime Video, Anne Hathaway and Nicholas Galitzine must have had a hell of a chemistry read.

Hathaway is all kinds of wonderful as Solène Marchand, a 40-ish Los Angeles gallery owner and single mother. Galitzine is Hayes Campbell, a 20-ish Brit pop star fronting the boy-band August Moon (think Harry Styles in One Direction). They connect when Solène takes her teen daughter Izzy (Ella Rubin) to Coachella and stumbles right into Hayes as the rules of romance demand.

And, boom, something clicks. If it didn't, there'd be no movie. Luckily, there is a movie, and it hums with humor, heat and unexpected heart. Adapted from Robinne Lee's 2017 bestseller, "The Idea of You" is scripted by Jennifer Westfeldt and director Michael Showalter, who trade in the book's erotic sizzle for a frisky charm that plays better to a wider audience.

PHOTO: Anne Hathaway as Solene and Nicholas Galitzine as Hayes Campbell in a scene from the movie 'The Idea of You.'

Showalter ("The Big Sick") has a way with tracing the curveballs sex throws at relationships. Both Solène and Hayes are well aware of their age difference. Hayes even sings about it onstage: "I know that you're a little bit older / but baby, rest your head on my shoulder."

Post Coachella, Solène follows Hayes on tour -- New York, London, Paris, Rome, the whole nine yards. Don't discount the pleasure of watching beautiful people make out in beautiful places. Movie memories are made of this. But "The Idea of You" goes the extra mile in lush.

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The script cuts beneath the surface to find what hurts and maybe heals in a love affair that grows into something more than casual. Solène feels blindsided by her brush with Hayes' fame and how her tabloid notoriety affects her daughter. And what future can horndog Hayes find with this woman nearly twice his age?

It's the actors who deepen the story by filling in the space between words. Kudos to Galitzine, who recently made his mark as the queer prince in "Red, White & Royal Blue" and as the sex-for-sale son of Julianne Moore in "Mary & George." As Hayes, Galitzine fully registers that Solène is a woman getting a raw deal from the sexist perception of her as a predator.

PHOTO: Anne Hathaway in a scene from the movie "The Idea of You."

Still, it's Hathaway who centers the film with the grit and grace of her portrayal as a woman over 40 who defies the limits society puts on how she should behave. Hathaway can nail a laugh and then break your heart before you know what hit you.

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The book had a bummer ending that's been slightly softened by a film that hasn't given up on happily ever after. It even pushes the notion that the reality of who you love might just trump the fantasy version. There's something increasingly rare about a movie that celebrates lovers who learn to see themselves clear, damn what the world thinks.

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"The Idea of You" stands high in the burgeoning romcom renaissance. Cliche quicksand doesn't drag it down like the recent hit "Anyone But You" dimmed the bright pairing of Glen Powell and Sydney Sweeney with vapid writing and directing.

No such disaster befalls "The Idea of You," not with Showalter and his creatives providing the sass and sweetness that fuel liftoff. Sure, there's turbulence. Hathaway and Galitzine are impossibly gorgeous -- a forgivable sin of the genre -- but they infuse their roles with feelings we all can recognize, feelings that stay with you. That makes all the difference.

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Elisabeth Moss embraces her best role yet as a secret agent in 'The Veil'

David Bianculli

Elisabeth Moss plays British spy Imogen Salter in The Veil. Christine Tamalet/FX hide caption

Elisabeth Moss plays British spy Imogen Salter in The Veil.

The new FX on Hulu series The Veil is a spy show about several different spy agencies – from the United States, England and France – all after the same goal. They want to discover the details of a suspected new Sept. 11-type terrorist plot, reportedly emanating from the Middle East, and stop it before it happens.

Sometimes these organizations work together – sometimes they work against one another. But throughout, the agent who is most crucial to cracking the case is a British superspy temporarily going under the name of Imogen. She's played by Elisabeth Moss , of Mad Men and The Handmaid's Tale , and by the end of the six episodes of The Veil, I was convinced that this is Moss' best role, and best performance, yet. She's amazing.

As a secret agent, Imogen has plenty of secrets of her own, which unfold slowly as the miniseries progresses. She's a damaged soul with a haunted past – which, for her latest mission, turns out to be a valuable asset. She's been charged to locate and befriend a woman who recently surfaced in a refugee camp on the Syrian and Turkish border.

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The woman, going by the name Adilah (Yumna Marwan), claims to be of Algerian descent, and from France — but several spy agencies suspect her of being the elusive mastermind behind the rumored imminent terrorist plot. Imogen's mission is to locate Adilah, who is held under guard at the camp after being attacked and stabbed by other refugees. Imogen offers to help Adilah escape, while getting close enough to try to ascertain her true identity, motives and target.

Elisabeth Moss and Yumna Marwan are more alike than either initially suspect in The Veil. Christine Tamalet/FX hide caption

Elisabeth Moss and Yumna Marwan are more alike than either initially suspect in The Veil.

The terrorist Imogen is hunting is known as Djinn al Raqqa – in folklore, a shape-shifting genie who can assume any form. Is Adilah actually Djinn al Raqqa hiding in plain sight? Or is she as innocent as she claims? Imogen, a shapeshifter of sorts herself, uses all her spycraft skills to earn Adilah's trust, by helping her in her quest to cross borders and return to Paris, where her young daughter awaits.

Their journey is fascinating, with each probing to learn the other's secrets while protecting her own. It's a bit like Homeland where you, the viewer, are unsure of each character's true motives. And as the two women go off the grid and spend time with each other, avoiding all the authorities trying to locate them, their relationship keeps deepening.

In that way, The Veil is a bit like Thelma & Louise . Except, sometimes, it's more like Thelma v. Louise. Both characters are delightfully unpredictable. In one scene, Imogen takes Adilah to a smuggler they hope will give them new passports and identities to get to Paris. Imogen's plan is to have them pose as singers and belly dancers. But their proposed cover is at risk when the smuggler decides to test them a little by demanding that Adilah display her skills — which she does, leaving both Imogen and the smuggler suitably impressed.

These two actors are incredibly nuanced and well-matched in these roles – captivating as adversaries, and even more so if and when they decide to become allies. The writer and creator of The Veil , Steven Knight from Peaky Blinders and All the Light We Cannot See , explores their relationship brilliantly. But he also keeps escalating the terrorist plot, and following the many agents and agencies trying to crack it. One special standout here is Josh Charles, from The Good Wife and Sports Night, who is cast as an aggressive CIA agent on French soil – an ugly American in Paris. He plays his part perfectly.

Even so, The Veil, at its core, is the story of two shape-shifting survivors who are more alike than either of them suspected – and whose realization of that fact may, or may not, stop a horrifying terrorist attack. It's quite a voyage – and quite a drama.

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Review: Elisabeth Moss stars as a spy gone rogue in FX’s thriller ‘The Veil’

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Elisabeth Moss has acted in more projects than you can remember for more years than you might guess, but it was “Mad Men” in 2007 that made her the reason to watch a show — an impression cemented by “ Top of the Lake” and taken for granted by the time of “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

She’s a fierce presence; even when playing powerlessness, she radiates intensity. In “The Veil,” created by Steven Knight (“Peaky Blinders”) and premiering Tuesday on Hulu, the camera makes a habit of looking straight at her face, submitting you to her penetrating gaze.

Moss plays MI6 agent Imogen Salter, which we understand immediately is just her latest nom d’espionnage . (The actor’s father was British, so she comes by the accent half honestly.) She turns up incognito at a snowy U.N. refugee camp at the Syrian-Turkish border, where a young woman, Adilah El Idrissi (Yumna Marwan), has been taken into protective custody after having nearly been lynched by a mob that believes her to be Sabaine al Kubaisi, an upper-level Islamic State commander, “the most wanted woman in the world.”

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Imogen has come to the camp to find out what Adilah, or Sabaine, might know about a rumored big terrorist attack on a Western target, and spirits her away. Owing in no small part to Marwan’s deep soulfulness, our sympathy at first runs to Adilah, a lone, broken figure hoping only to get back to her 10-year-old daughter in Paris.

She at least seems to be telling the truth, whereas Imogen, who represents powerful government institutions, professionally lies all the time — though we’re kept uncertain just how much to believe what either says. “Even though we’re lying to each other, I feel like I’ve been more honest with her than most people,” Imogen will tell French agent Malik Amar (Dali Benssalah), her contact and more-or-less boyfriend, in regard to Adilah.

Two women standing face to face in a snowy field.

Imogen can seem a little mad; she has a habit of smiling at odd times, making it difficult to know exactly what’s going on in there. We can infer from her smoking and drinking that she’s an unsettled sort of person, and we’re fed morsels of an origin story to suggest unresolved trauma, which seems engineered to parallel Adilah‘s but will obviously be assembled further down the line.

In the end — near the beginning, actually — Imogen will go rogue, setting herself against her superiors and protecting (and interrogating) Adilah as they travel from Syria to Istanbul to Paris and England, their way obstructed by terrorist proxies and warring intelligence agencies.

It’s a road movie, basically, one of those in which strangers thrown together become less strange to one another. As a spy story, it’s a decent example of its kind, but as a dramatic two-hander, fueled by subtle performances from Moss and Marwan, it’s pretty terrific.

Josh Charles plays CIA agent Max Peterson, a caricature of U.S. bluster, impatience, self-approval and Francophobia, sent to Paris to hijack the investigation from French intelligence. (Imogen is on loan to them, being the absolute best at what she does; British intelligence doesn’t enter the picture.)

Described by Malik’s superior, Magritte (the august Thibault de Montalembert, who recently provided similar service in “Franklin”), as “the most American American America has ever produced,” Max isn’t out of the airport before he’s actually tussling with Malik. Their butting-stags competitive relationship is as close to comic relief as “The Veil” will come.

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Terrorism, as depicted onscreen, is a tired and tricky theme, subject to cultural stereotype. Accordingly, Knight has left the composition of his malefactors — not even ISIS (that is, Islamic State) but “a breakaway ISIS cell,” a marginal marginal group — a little vague, and painted sides in a variety of ethnicities. (One notes that both Adilah and Malik are French Algerian.) But terrorism is a device here, not a subject.

Though its premise makes it unavoidably political, “The Veil” is only, one might say, incidentally so, no more interested in actual geopolitics or ideology than “Ronin,” which the Paris locations bring to mind, or “The 39 Steps.” This strikes me as its strength; in terms of storytelling, the death of hundreds, thousands, millions or billions is merely a tool, a sensational, meaningless abstraction — as it can be in life, sadly. We’ve seen the world or significant portions thereof destroyed onscreen so often that apocalypse has become an empty cliche, nothing more than a vehicle for expensive effects and cheap thrills. But the tearing of a single friendship can break your heart.

If it’s not always clear in the moment who is shooting at whom or why, whenever the script ignites a fight or a gunfight or a chase or an escape, there’s no question whom to root for — both Imogen and Adilah. Asked to choose between them, one simply suspends judgment, hoping, as with any troubled couple, that things will work out well. Though all six episodes were sent to reviewers, only the first four were allowed to be reviewed, so you will have to see and decide for yourself.

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The Beast review: An ambitious, compelling monster of a movie

Léa seydoux and george mackay captivate in bertrand bonello's haunting sci-fi drama.

There’s an instant urgency in The Beast , the latest film from writer-director Bertrand Bonello, that persists despite its hefty runtime of 145 minutes. Even in its quietest moments, as Bonello’s pacing slows to a crawl and we are asked to consider every gesture, every weighty theme piled atop this towering stack of ideas, there’s a feeling that this film is aching to show us something, pushing ahead with an almost desperate need to convey its emotional truths.

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