The Mastermind review – Kelly Reichardt lays out the worst-laid plans

Maybe he needs an Oscar nomination or two first. But with his hopscotching career – from personifying Prince Charles in two seasons of The Crown to smashing it as a horny tennis pro in Challengers – Josh O’Connor would be an intriguing specialist subject on Mastermind.

Boning up on the young English actor’s filmography would certainly not be dull. The 35-year-old has already played a closeted young farmer unafraid to get his hands dirty (God’s Own Country), a rumpled but gifted grave robber adrift in Italy (La Chimera) and a pugilistic priest accused of murder in upcoming star-stuffed whodunnit Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery. 

Until he gets his flowers from Clive Myrie, O’Connor will have to content himself with being the lead in 1970s-set cautionary tale The Mastermind. That title suggests his character James Blaine ‘JB’ Mooney – a US art school dropout turned carpenter with a young family to support – is the sort of man with a plan who sees all the angles. (Even the name JB Mooney evokes near-mythic thief DB Cooper, who got away clean with $200,000 after an audacious air hijack in 1971.) 

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If the early 1970s were a turbulent time in the US due to Vietnam war protests and ongoing civil rights struggles it all seems pretty sleepy in JB’s autumnal corner of suburban Massachusetts. What better place to rip off a local redbrick museum of art that has some covetable Arthur Dove abstract paintings on the wall and minimal security on the door? When we first meet him, JB is scoping out the joint while on a family outing with his wife Terri (Alana Haim) and their two rowdy young sons. Turns out tilting your head while you pretend to contemplate art is great cover for planning the perfect robbery.  

With his cerebral affectation and reluctance to take on menial tasks, JB certainly appears to consider himself rather above it all. While he bristles at his judgemental father (Bill Camp) at family dinners he is canny enough to keep his mother (Hope Davis) onside, as she can be sweet-talked into lending him some much-needed cash. But a mastermind? It does not take too long to realise that the only time this listless schemer is the smartest man in the room is when JB summons a couple of local blockheads to his basement to fill them in on a heist plan that involves pantyhose, pillowcases and sheer dumb pluck. 

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A plan is often just a list of things that don’t happen, and it is not too much of a spoiler to say that the Arthur Dove caper hits a few road bumps. If not a complete disaster, it certainly leaves the brains behind it in a very precarious position. That’s when The Mastermind reveals itself as a crime yarn that’s really about unravelling. As the cops begin to start asking awkward questions, JB must decide whether he stays put and brazens it out or abandons his family and goes on the run.

He has art school friends scattered round the country, and draft-dodgers are making fresh starts in Canada. Perhaps he will make for a more successful fugitive then robber. 

O’Connor – who looks great mooching around in downbeat 1970s wardrobe – is supremely watchable as a deeply flawed character who still demonstrates flashes of being a caring husband and loving father. With his comfortable background and stint of higher education, JB should surely smart enough to know he is making a series of increasingly poor decisions.

But O’Connor’s tightrope performance suggests a man using self-delusion as a means of self-preservation. If he ever paused to truly face the facts his whole worldview would implode, so JB coasts onwards on dwindling reserves of charm and money. 

So is it a heist movie? A road movie? In interviews, writer-director Kelly Reichardt, an old hand at crafting textured portraits of imperfect lives, has called it a “coming apart” movie. She was certainly lucky to find such a willing partner-in-crime as O’Connor, who does not shy away from showing the uglier facets of JB when things come to a head.

It all feels of a piece with the wider aesthetic of the film. With its freewheeling nature and absence of easy answers, The Mastermind doesn’t just look like some lost 1970s movie: it channels some of that decade’s compelling cinematic ambivalence too. 

The Mastermind is in cinemas from 24 October. 

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