Mass

Over the course of their conversation, it is slowly revealed that Jay and Gail are grieving the murder of their son, who was killed in a school shooting perpetrated by Linda and Richard’s son, who then committed suicide in the aftermath. Jay and Gail are desperate to know if Linda and Richard saw any signs of violent behaviour in their son, who is described as a shy person, who had a habit of playing violent video games.

Mass ends up tackling many questions that come about in the aftermath of school shootings, which have almost a regular occurrence in the United States, in the two decades following the infamous Columbine shootings. One of the most obvious questions asked is that of nature vs nurture and whether the school shooting was the result of bad parenting by Linda and Richard or their son was already predisposed with sociopathic behaviour.

While all four leads give equally emotional performances over the course of Mass, the standouts are undoubtedly Martha Plimpton, probably still best known for being one of the stars of The Goonies 36 years ago, and Ann Dowd, who has great performances in everything from 2012’s Compliance to her Emmy-nominated run on The Handmaid’s Tale. Both Pimpton and Dowd play grieving mothers on opposite ends of the spectrum and both end up getting a featured moment telling a story about their son, with Dowd’s story ending up being the punctuation mark of the entire film.

Overall, despite its very minimalist play-like style that takes place predominantly in a single room of a church basement, Mass is an excellent directorial debut for Fran Kranz, with a dual meaning in the title that shouldn’t be lost on viewers.