Mass | Review
When I was younger, someone attempted to kill my uncle at the gas station he owned and worked at. The assailant was caught soon after. He was just a kid, around 16 years old (I don’t remember his exact age). I remember my dad, my uncle’s brother, criticizing the kid’s parents, blaming them for raising such a violent child.
At what point are the parents to blame for their children’s heinous acts, and at what point do the children take sole responsibility? Even at my young age, I disagreed with what my dad said. I wondered, if I did something bad, would I blame my parents?
This is one of many questions at the heart of Mass, a film centered around a meeting between two couples years after their respective sons died in a mass shooting at their school: Jay (Jason Isaacs) and Gail (Martha Plimpton), and Richard (Reed Birney) and Linda (Ann Dowd).
Jay (Jason Isaacs) and Gail (Martha Plimpton)
Right from the start, the meeting is awkward in the quartet’s attempts at being cordial. They each talk about what their sons were like when they were young. Memories are shared. Gail brought photos. So did Linda, though no one else thinks it’s appropriate. Instead, Gail presses for answers. “Why do I want to know about your son?” she asks. “Because he killed mine.”
At this point we understand the two couples are grieving under different circumstances. The film’s title has more than one meaning. Jay and Gail are there because they want answers to the unimaginable. The boys didn’t even know each other, so why was Jay and Gail’s son killed by Richard and Linda’s son? Was it lax gun laws, violent video games, mental health issues, bullying, what? They need to know. Richard and Linda, as much as they try, cannot give them this solace. They, too, want answers to the unexplainable.
Mass is one of the rare stories to depict what it’s like to be a parent of a mass shooter, something movies and even the media never care for. The only time I’ve seen a story like this was in 2010, Shawn Ku’s Beautiful Boy (not the 2018 film of the same name, starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet). But I found Mass to be more effective at making us sympathize with parents of the perpetrators.
Linda (Ann Dowd) and Richard (Reed Birney)
Yes, Richard and Linda acknowledge what their son did and they unequivocally condemn his actions. But they can’t deny their love for their child. They’ve received death threats throughout the years. No church would agree to bury their son. They’re not even allowed to grieve or honor their son publicly, for fear of backlash. He may have killed ten people that day, but to Richard and Linda, their son was the 11th victim.
For the faint of heart, don’t be alarmed: there are no images, sounds, or anything close to a depiction of the mass shooting at the center of this meeting. Mass is a gut-wrenching and powerful film that takes place in a single location, the basement of an Episcopalian Church, featuring a real-time discussion. It’s a surprisingly original feature not based on a play, though it certainly feels like one (I mean that in a good way). There’s nothing flashy about it. There’s no snappy editing or dramatic music to tell us how to feel. This is a raw story with four powerhouse performances that will leave you in tears.
Ann Dowd as Linda
The four actors are each excellent in their own way, depicting four individuals grieving in their own ways. At the onset, Jay portrays himself as the rational one, the mediator, compared to wife Gail who seems intent on not leaving without being given an answer as to why her son died. But Jay’s layers are eventually peeled, showing he’s much more like his wife than we thought. Richard starts off as cold and calculating, but we learn it’s a facade for a man who blames himself for what his son became. Linda is remorseful the entire time, but she won’t let her son be defined by one bad act.
Mass is one of the best films of the year, with four of the best performances of the year. It’s a remarkable debut from writer/director Fran Kranz (Marty from The Cabin in the Woods), whose sensitive direction and dialogue makes this conversation, something we wouldn’t be allowed to listen in on in real life, feel authentic and not exploitative. The film may not change the way we talk about this type of tragedy or its root causes, but at the very least it’ll change the way we view the loved ones left behind.
