Mass

Mass is an emotional rollercoaster, and the best movie I've seen all year. A while back, I decided I'd take a break from writing movie reviews, I had no intention to end the streak. However, this movie is too good to not talk about. I don't know if I've ever been so emotionally vulnerable because of a movie in my entire life. Now, I don't usually cry during movies, or at all really. I haven't ugly cried about anything in years. However, this movie broke me. When I was nearing the end of it's runtime, my chest started to swell, but I didn't shed a single tear. An hour later, I met a minor inconvenience and just broke down sobbing. I had been subconsciously digesting the movie and the most trivial thing made me cry. It's kind of embarrassing, but that's just a testament to how damn good this movie is. I want to give a round of applause to the writers. This is a great script. The movie doesn't talk down to it's viewers, it asks them to give the screen their complete attention, as there are no cutaways or flashbacks. Everything is done through the dialogue of a few characters in a room. I'm sure this is partially due to budgetary concerns, but it's also the film's greatest strength. If the dialogue was weak, the movie would suffer from the worst fate possible: being boring. Fortunately, the dialogue is extremely captivating. It also helps that the acting is great from everyone involved. At the beginning, I was trying to pin down who was giving the strongest performance and I honestly couldn't choose. If I HAD to pick, I'd say the best performance in the film was from Ann Dowd; she got a lot of sympathy from me. It's also worth noting that she acts a lot like she did in Hereditary (before the big reveal, of course). However, everyone was amazing. Jason Isaac brought tons of emotion to his character, even though he shined the most during his more stoic moments. Martha Plimpton plays her role of the traumatized mother who can't move on without it seeming like she's a character we've seen before. Her passive-agressiveness added so much tension that the conversation was uncomfortable, at the beginning. Her arch was the main focus and was (obviously) done well. Reed Birney played my favorite character, he had the most layers and the most disturbed conscious of the four. Something that really impressed me were the character dynamics in the film. The chemistry between all the actors made it feel like they were real people, not just a bunch of names on a script. I loved how when the conversation was starting, the two couples were seemingly pitted against each other, like they were adversaries. But by the end, they put themselves in a circle with no table in-between them. This was a very creative way of symbolizing how they went from foes to having an understanding of each other's hardships. They no longer saw the other couple as enemies, but as victims. The barrier of their own ignorance has been removed. The movie touches on this in multiple ways but I don't want to get into heavy spoilers, and I don't want this review to get too ungodly long. The creative choices and symbolism in this movie are very smart. 2/3 of the way through the movie, the aspect ratio of the movie changes. I noticed this at the time, but it was so subtle that I had to look it up after the movie was over to make sure my mind wasn't deceiving me. It seemed that the far left and far right of the screen were compressed, as the character's faces were slightly distorted when they were on the edge of frame. Despite this, you could see more of the room than you could with the previously used aspect ratio. The change could mean a multitude of things. It's my personal opinion that the new aspect ratio symbolizes that for the families to heal, they have to come together and settle their differences. When they're apart (figuratively and literally), they are a shell of their former selves, their feelings towards the other, contorted. Another interesting choice they made was to consistently cut to this field that 2 of the characters were looking at early in the movie. The first thing I noticed was the piece of red tape fluttering in the wind, but there's much more to see than just that. I have no idea what this could mean, I'll admit that. But surely filmakers of this caliber wouldn't put it in for no reason. I'm going to continue to think about it and try to decipher what it means. It's amazing how they managed to be creative with their visuals, but also with the film's audio. The choice to have no music throughout the vast majority of the film was ballsy, but it payed off in a big way. A choice like this has the chance of destroying the emotional beats of a script. People have become so reliant on music to bring heart to those impactful moments in a film that it's hard to believe it can be done. This movie's much like a stage play, as the limited setting and lack of music makes you focus on just the dialogue and emotion coming through the screen. Their conversation feels so raw, so real because of it. The lack of music makes the final scene feel so much more impactful. I can't believe they packed so much into a movie that is on such a small scale with such a small budget. Another thing I was impressed with was how the movie didn't pick sides. They trusted the audience enough to make their own decisions about the character's situation. With a story like this, it can be easy to pile on. When you go online, that's pretty much the only thing that's happening. However, in the real world, not everything is black and white. I'm glad the filmmakers had the world view to realize this, especially in a time where tribe mentality runs rampant. Now, just because this movie is great doesn't mean that it's completely perfect. My only issue with the movie is the first 5-10 minutes. They introduced a few characters that have little to no pull on the story. I can honestly see some people turning off the movie right at the beginning just because the story starts off slow. They'd be wrong for doing that, but I'm not gonna act like that wouldn't happen. I get why these minor characters were in the movie, I just think their purpose could have been fulfilled in a more concise way. Their inclusion felt unnecessary, which was weird because the team behind this film did a good job of cutting out all the fluff. That being said, this is a minor issue. Once you get past the first scene, the real story picks up, and from there on it's smooth sailing. As you can see, this movie is a must watch. If you like a slow burn or dialogue heavy films that will hit you where it hurts, this is a movie that cannot be skipped.