Weekly Mass Discussion Thread #23

It's Sunday and @TheDunceonMaster hasn't made the Weekly Mass Discussion Thread yet. Since the christards forgot to make a thread, I'm making one, with the scripture being discussed today being the spine-tingling, bone-chilling, slow-burn, politically relevant film Mass.

First Reading:

https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/mass_2021/reviews

MASS is an ASTOUNDING, RAW, HEARTSHATTERING, & EMOTIONAL Movie. Incredibly written/directed by Kranz, but MASS is a performance driven movie. Isaacs & Birney are EXCELLENT.

This is just one of the amazing reviews you will see for this genre-defining film by the critics we all know and trust.

Responsorial Psalm

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/mass-movie-review-2021

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).

The film touches on the deeply relevant issue of Bad Faith attitudes in debates, especially about mass shootings.

Second Reading (actually viewing)

What's incredible is that this revelation comes 36 minutes into the film. Until then, you don't even know why these people are having this conversation. Masterpiece of a screenplay

The most intense and raw film you'll see in a long time....four stars to all the cast...heartbreaking...

Wow, you can FEEL the tension, this movie looks outstanding

Gospel

https://old.reddit.com/r/movies/comments/s0800p/i_never_post_in_this_sub_but_mass_2021_was_hands?sort=controversial

I just saw this film on Amazon Prime because I saw that Ann Dowd was in it and I'm a huge Handmaid fan. I went in almost completely blind reading nothing other than the description.

I was completely blown away by this movie. It's unbearably tense, and it really feels…real. Like we as an audience are a fly on the wall in the conversation taking place. All the performances are excellent, but Jason Isaacs in particular I think gives an Oscar worthy performance. Martha Plimpton coming in close second.

I just finished, and I am sitting here trying to process what I saw and frick, the acting and the dialogue. Just wow

Which leads me to ask: How are more people not talking about this movie?!?! Maybe it's because the subject matter is so heavy, and utterly heartbreaking.

Please, do yourself a favor and watch this movie. It's only 3.99 on Amazon in the US.

What are your thoughts on the film? What does it say about society?

!atheists