● Film
Ensembles
ANN DOWD AND REED BIRNEY
“Mass”
MAIN CAST: Reed
than another, and each gets their moment to shine. At the same time, none of these standout scenes feel contrived or only there for the sake of giving each actor equal billing. The tension is gradual, and the release—when it does come—is earned. But that certainly doesn’t make the film any easier to watch. It would be impossible to single out one performance as superior or even as the piece’s “leading” turn. They are all inextricable from one another, and especially in the cases of the couples, shaped by one another. Plimpton’s turn, however, is the most surprising. In recent years, the actor has been known for playing comedic television roles—but there is nothing to laugh about in her work here. Though initially closed off, Plimpton’s Gail ultimately has the most visceral response to the day’s events, and her emotional explosion provides the film’s moment of release. Her foil, Dowd’s Linda, makes Plimpton’s outward agony even more affecting. Dowd is no stranger to excruciating circumstances (this is Aunt Lydia from “The Handmaid’s Tale,” after
Birney, Michelle N. Carter, Ann Dowd, Jason Isaacs, Martha Plimpton, Breeda Wool Kranz WRITTEN BY: Fran Kranz DISTRIBUTED BY: Bleecker Street
all), and she’s at her best here. “Mass”—and the performances of these two women—gets the audience to sympathize equally with both of their situations. Is it a worse fate to be the mother of the victim or the mother of the murderer? “Mass” doesn’t have an answer to that question, and it doesn’t claim to. What it does examine are the ways in which grief can manifest for years and years. This is most evident in the performances of the two fathers, played with an admirable lack of stoicism by Isaacs and Birney. Their common thread is their tendency to hyper-fixate on something, anything, to distract them from the hell of their everyday realities. What is most apparent from watching the film’s quartet bounce off each other is the mutual support they provide each other. How else would they be able to wade into such treacherous subject matter? And yet, it’s been reported that the cast laughed constantly off-camera; it’s proof as much as anything else that joy and sorrow go hand in hand. — CASEY MINK
CASTING BY: Henry
Russell Bergstein and Allison Estrin
DIRECTED BY: Fran
BACKSTAGE 12.20.21
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backstage.com
BLEECKER STREET
DESPITE ITS SINGLE SETTING—A SPARSE, dreary meeting room in the bowels of a church—“Mass” is one of the most exhilarating films you’ll see this year. That’s due in large part to filmmaker Fran Kranz’s script and direction, but it’s also thanks to live-wire performances from the production’s four stars. Martha Plimpton and Jason Isaacs portray the parents of a boy who was killed in a school shooting, and Ann Dowd and Reed Birney play the parents of the boy who gunned him down before taking his own life. The conceit alone is enough to stop you in your tracks. The two sets of parents have been brought together on this day for a mediation session that’s intended to create space for asking and answering questions in hopes of providing some form of closure. To varying extents, that does occur; but what happens along the way is scenery-chomping that would send a shiver down Edward Albee’s spine. What makes this film the epitome of an ensemble piece is also what makes it so thrilling to behold: No actor takes up more space
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