Mass | |
---|---|
Directed by | Fran Kranz |
Written by | Fran Kranz |
Produced by |
|
Starring | |
Cinematography | Ryan Jackson-Healy |
Edited by | Yang Hua Hu |
Music by | Darren Morze |
Production companies |
|
Distributed by | Bleecker Street |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 110 minutes [1] |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | <$300,000 [2] |
Box office | $250,513 [3] [4] |
Mass is a 2021 American drama film written and directed by Fran Kranz in his directorial debut. It stars Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, and Martha Plimpton as grieving parents who meet to discuss a tragedy involving their sons. The film had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 2021, and was released on October 8, 2021, by Bleecker Street. At the BAFTA Awards, Dowd received a nomination for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.
Jay and Gail Perry are parents grieving the death of their son Evan, a victim of a high school shooting. Richard and Linda are the parents of the teenage perpetrator Hayden, who killed himself after his shootings. Six years after the tragedy, both couples agree to meet and talk in a private room at an Episcopal Church. The couples had met previously, in which Jay and Gail made hurtful comments toward Richard and Linda when they were all going through the public legal procedures that resulted from the incident. Jay had since publicly advocated for gun control and against gun ownership, causing a brief debate between him and Richard.
After talking about their sons when they were innocent children, the two couples partake in various lengthy discussions over how the tragedy had come to be and how the tragedy impacted their lives. Jay and Gail ask for information from Richard and Linda about Hayden's upbringing that they do not already know from public information about the incident. Richard and Linda tell that they knew that he became more depressed due to their family moving houses, lack of friends, and bullying at school. The couples briefly debate whether video games had influenced Hayden's violent thoughts. While acknowledging that Hayden's schools and therapists did not respond appropriately to their findings, Richard and Linda express their guilt and regret over how their failure to see and react to any signs that their son could have become violent. Jay and Gail admit that they wanted to see Richard and Linda in as much pain as they and the other victims' parents were. Richard and Linda admit that being the parents of a murderer meant that they did not know how to navigate being public figures, since they also could not speculate about why Hayden did what he did. Richard and Linda reveal that Hayden had made friends in high school, who were also victims of bullying, and that one of his friends had access to guns. Jay and Linda become furious, causing Richard to warn against jumping to conclusions about Hayden, only for Jay to speculate that Hayden was a psychopath who was incapable of being dealt with.
Jay eventually has a short angry outburst, leading to him breaking down as he describes how Evan was killed by Hayden. Both couples reflect on the other victims and their families, and when they visited the crime scene in the aftermath. Linda reveals that she found a notebook in her son's room after learning of the shooting, detailing his plans for the shooting and his suicide in the school library. She and Richard explain that while they understood that the grieving parents would not mourn the loss of Hayden, they still wanted and held a funeral to memorialize and mourn their once-innocent son whom they loved before his horrible actions. Linda expresses that she wants to remember the good memories about Hayden before his actions, rather than ignoring and condemning Hayden completely. When Linda asks Gail to tell a story about Evan, Gail recounts a positive memory of Evan when he was 12 and expresses how much she and Jay miss him. Having come to an understanding of all the pain they felt, Gail forgives Richard, Linda, and Hayden, wanting to move on from all the deep pain and grief.
The couples hold hands in silence to end their meeting, all having reached a state of empathy for each other. Richard leaves first for a business meeting. Linda follows, only to come back to speak to Gail and Jay once more. Linda recounts the moment she and Richard were the most terrified of Hayden when he angrily threatened to beat her up. She confesses that she wishes she was beaten up by him so she could truly see what he became, leading Gail to comfort her before they finally part ways. Jay becomes emotional when he overhears a choir practice in another room of the church. Gail comforts him before they finally depart.
In November 2019, it was announced that Fran Kranz would write and direct Mass in his feature directorial debut, with Reed Birney, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, and Martha Plimpton attached to star. [5] Breeda Wool joined the cast in December 2019. [6] The film was shot over a roughly two week period in late 2019 at Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Hailey, Idaho. [7] [8]
Mass had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 30, 2021 in the Premieres section. [9] In May 2021, Bleecker Street acquired distribution rights to the film. [10] By the end of its run, the film will have screened at film festivals in Busan, [11] Charlottesville, [12] London, [13] San Sebastian, [14] Sudbury, [15] Woodstock [16] and Zurich. [17] It is scheduled to be released on October 8, 2021. [18] In September 2021, Sky Cinema acquired the UK and Ireland distribution rights. [19] In the United States, the film was screened in four theaters; two in New York and two in Los Angeles. [20]
In its opening weekend, Mass earned $13,485 from four theaters. [21]
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes , 95% of 193 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.30/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "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." [22] Metacritic , which uses a weighted average , assigned the film a score of 81 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "universal acclaim". [23]
Kranz's direction and storytelling techniques received praise. The Chicago Reader compared the film to the works of playwright Tennessee Williams, calling it "riveting and unforgettable." [24] Richard Whittaker from The Austin Chronicle had a similar response and said in his review that the story was "perfectly told." [25] Writing for Little White Lies , Hannah Strong summarized the film as a "study of human pain and anger in painstaking detail, supported by a script which is hauntingly realistic without dipping into mawkish or exploitative territory." [26] Owen Gleiberman, from Variety , said the film "announces Fran Kranz as a bold new filmmaker who has earned the right to excavate a subject as sensitive as this one." [27]
The performances in the film also received praise. While Entertainment Weekly said it was "an exceptional opportunity to watch four great character actors," [28] Salon.com said the film "gives each member of the ensemble cast a big speech to emote and express what their characters are feeling. The conversation is certainly compelling as it builds." [29] In his review for The Hollywood Reporter , David Rooney said the film was "a harrowing watch, but a cathartic one, with each of the four superb principal actors delivering scenes of wrenching release." [30] Furthermore, Vox journalist Alissa Wilkinson said Mass "leaves plenty of breathing room for characters to have authentic moments of emotion and puts a gentle, grace-filled frame around an almost unspeakable tragedy. It's a showcase for its performers, but it's also a valuable experience for its audience." [31]
Ann Dowd is an American actress. She has appeared in numerous films, including Green Card (1990), Lorenzo's Oil (1992), Philadelphia (1993), Garden State (2004), The Manchurian Candidate (2004), Marley & Me (2008), Compliance (2012), Side Effects (2013), St. Vincent (2014), Captain Fantastic (2016), Hereditary (2018), and Mass (2021). For Compliance, she won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress. For Mass, she earned nominations for a British Academy Film Award and a Critics' Choice Award.
Emilia Annis I. Jones is a British actress. She is best known for her lead role as a child of deaf adults in the drama film CODA (2021), for which she received a British Academy Film Award nomination for Best Actress. She is also known for starring in the Netflix adventure series Locke & Key (2020–2022).
Danielle Deadwyler is an American actress. She began her career appearing on Atlanta stage, including in the 2009 production of For Colored Girls, and made her screen debut in the 2012 drama film A Cross to Bear. Deadwyler appeared in the primetime series The Haves and the Have Nots (2015–2017), the series P-Valley (2020), the miniseries Station Eleven (2021–2022), and the miniseries From Scratch (2022).
Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, known collectively as the Daniels, are an American filmmaking duo. They began their career as directors of music videos, including ones for "Houdini" (2012) by Foster the People and "Turn Down for What" (2013) by DJ Snake and Lil Jon, both of which earned them nominations at the Grammy Awards.
Shirkers is a 2018 British-American documentary film by Singapore-born filmmaker Sandi Tan about the making of an independent thriller featuring a teenage assassin set in Singapore. It premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival in January and won the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award, making her the second Singapore-born filmmaker after Kirsten Tan to win an award at the festival. It was also nominated for the Gotham Independent Film Award for Best Documentary.
Passing is a 2021 American historical drama film written and directed by Rebecca Hall in her feature directorial debut. It is adapted from the 1929 novel of the same name by Nella Larsen. Set in 1920s New York City, the film follows the intertwined life of a black woman and her white-passing childhood friend. Appearing in supporting roles are André Holland, Bill Camp, Gbenga Akinnagbe, Antoinette Crowe-Legacy, and Alexander Skarsgård. It was filmed in black-and-white.
On the Rocks is a 2020 American comedy-drama film written and directed by Sofia Coppola. It follows a father and daughter as they harbor suspicions about her husband's fidelity. It had its world premiere at the New York Film Festival on September 22, 2020. It received a limited theatrical release on October 2, 2020, by A24, followed by digital streaming on October 23, 2020, by Apple TV+. It received positive reviews from critics, who noted it as lighter than Coppola's previous films, and praised Murray's performance.
The Lost Daughter is a 2021 psychological drama film written and directed by Maggie Gyllenhaal, based on the 2006 novel by Elena Ferrante. The film stars Olivia Colman, Dakota Johnson, Jessie Buckley, Paul Mescal, Dagmara Domińczyk, Jack Farthing, Oliver Jackson-Cohen, Peter Sarsgaard, and Ed Harris. Colman also served as an executive producer.
Sidney Jeanne Flanigan is an American actress and singer-songwriter. Flanigan made her acting debut with the acclaimed independent drama film Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020), for which she received nominations for the Critics' Choice Movie Award for Best Actress and the Independent Spirit Award for Best Female Lead.
Flee is a 2021 independent adult animated documentary film directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen. An international co-production with Denmark, France, Norway, and Sweden, it follows the story of a man under the alias Amin Nawabi, who shares his hidden past of fleeing his home country of Afghanistan to Denmark for the first time. Riz Ahmed and Nikolaj Coster-Waldau serve as executive producers and narrators for the English-language dub version.
Summer of Soul is a 2021 American independent documentary film about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson in his directorial debut. It had its world premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival on January 28, 2021, where it won the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Award in the documentary categories. It had a limited theatrical release in the U.S. by Searchlight Pictures on June 25, 2021, before expanding and being released for streaming on Hulu the next weekend.
Living is a 2022 British historical drama film directed by Oliver Hermanus. Its screenplay by Kazuo Ishiguro was adapted from the 1952 Akira Kurosawa film Ikiru. Set in 1953 London, it stars Bill Nighy as a bureaucrat in the public works department who learns he has a fatal illness.
Jason Isaacs is an English actor known for his performances on screen and stage.
The 37th Film Independent Spirit Awards, honoring the best independent films and television series of 2021, were presented by Film Independent on March 6, 2022. Traditionally held the Saturday before the Academy Awards, the 2022 date marks a shift in the season, placing the Spirit Awards squarely in the corridor leading into Oscar voting. The nominations were announced on December 14, 2021 by actresses Beanie Feldstein, Regina Hall, and Naomi Watts. Returning to an in-person ceremony this year, the event was televised in the United States on IFC and streamed exclusively for subscribers by AMC+. Married couple Megan Mullally and Nick Offerman hosted the ceremony.
Fire of Love is a 2022 independent documentary film about the lives and careers of volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. Directed, written, and produced by Sara Dosa, the film had its world premiere at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2022, where it won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award. It was released on July 6, 2022, by National Geographic Documentary Films and Neon. It received acclaim from critics, and was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 95th Academy Awards.
All the Beauty and the Bloodshed is a 2022 American biographical documentary film about photographer, artist, and activist Nan Goldin. The film is produced, co-edited and directed by Laura Poitras, and tackles Goldin's life through her advocacy during the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80's, and her fight against the Sackler family for their role in the current opioid epidemic in the United States. Poitras, a long-time friend and fan, stated that "Nan's art and vision has inspired my work for years, and has influenced generations of filmmakers."
Past Lives is a 2023 romantic drama film written and directed by Celine Song in her feature directorial debut. Starring Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, and John Magaro, it follows two childhood friends over the course of 24 years while they contemplate the nature of their relationship as they grow apart, living different lives. The plot is semi-autobiographical and inspired by real events from Song's life.