The Mastermind’ Review: A Robbery and a Life Unraveling

In The Mastermind, director-writer Kelly Reichardt takes the tropes of the heist genre—casing the museum, recruiting a crew, planning the break-in—and subverts them, using the crime as a canvas to explore the unraveling of its protagonist. Set in Massachusetts in 1970, the film centers on James “J.B.” Mooney (Josh O’Connor), an unemployed tradesman and failed art student whose life is adrift beneath a veneer of ambition and entitlement.

J.B. is married, with children, and keeps up appearances with his friends and parents. But behind the curtain, he longs for something grander. After a small, impulsive theft in a museum spurred by curiosity and class resentment, he plots something much bigger: the theft of four abstract Arthur Dove paintings. He believes he understands enough—of security lapses, of risk, of who he is—to pull off the heist cleanly.

For a while, it seems he might. The heist itself, and the early moments after, are shot with a deliberate calm: Reichardt resists the glamour of crime, instead focusing on the minutiae—doors, alarms, guard patrols, the careful packing and moving of paintings. The tone is understated, the color palette muted, grounded in domestic life but always tinged with growing unease.

But things go off course. One accomplice quits. Another brings unpredictable energy. The theft might succeed in its immediate goal, but the aftermath reveals that J.B. is nowhere near master of his own fate. As he scrambles to hide the loot, manage relationships with his wife (Alana Haim) and parents (Hope Davis, Bill Camp), and avoid law enforcement or worse, the cracks in his fantasy become too large to ignore.

Reichardt emphasizes the everyday consequences: betrayal, paranoia, shame, estranged family dinners. J.B.’s father, a judge, becomes a looming figure of expectation and disappointment. The war in Vietnam and the broader political unrest of the era hover in the background, serving not as plot points but as texture—symbols of a country unsteady, mirroring J.B.’s own instability.

Josh O’Connor carries the film with a performance that’s both magnetic and off-balance. He’s charming enough that we can see why J.B. believes in himself—but also quietly terrifying in his delusion. Other performances add weight: Rebecca’s wife Terri feeling caught, parents observing and judging, the minor criminals who don’t share J.B.’s illusions. Yet some critics note that the female characters—especially Haim’s role—are underwritten, existing more in response to him than as fully independent individuals.

Rhythmically, The Mastermind doesn’t rush. Reichardt allows the film to settle into long moments: packing up paintings, resolving logistical nightmares, waiting for law enforcement to close in. This pacing rewards patience, though it may also test it. Some viewers may find the film slow, perhaps even tedious, especially once the core crime is over and the fallout takes center stage. The movie’s emotional impact grows through its accumulation of small failures rather than any explosively dramatic twist.

The film ends not with a triumphant escape or cinematic closure, but with quiet catastrophe: a life unraveling, relationships strained beyond repair, dreams exposed as hollow. The title’s irony becomes clear: this “mastermind” is never in control. He is a dreamer who inherited advantages, but also a man unprepared for the weight of consequences.

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