The Mastermind is a 2025 American ‘slow cinema’ film, written and directed by Kelly Reichardt. It had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May, and was released in the UK on 24 October.

The film is set in 1970, as the free-living experiment of the 1960s is coming to an end and America is still locked in deep unrest over the continuing Vietnam war. J.B. Mooney (Josh O’Connor) is an unemployed carpenter in Framingham, Massachusetts, son of, and one senses a bit of a disappointment to, a local judge. Whilst clearly not a criminal mastermind in the conventional sense, nevertheless he spends his time planning an art theft from the local public gallery. We watch as he ‘practices’ with the theft of a tiny figurine, presumably to assess the security systems, then plans in minute details the theft from the gallery of four abstract paintings by Arthur Dove, an early American abstract modernist. He then assembles a small gang to undertake the crime.

You will notice that I have studiously avoided the word heist. This is because if you are the sort of person who goes to see ‘heist movies’, this is almost certainly not for you. The film has wooed the critics, currently holding a 92% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and yet the RT audience reviews show a disappointing 38% approval. Why is this? Well, Kelly Reichardt is an advocate of ‘slow cinema’. Her Western film, Meek’s Cutoff, followed a group of settlers on the Oregon Trail and was a heartbreakingly realistic portrayal of how hard that journey must have been – but there were no wild hordes of red Indians firing arrows at gun-toting cowboys – it was not that sort of a Western. Similarly, The Mastermind follows JB through the planning and execution of the theft; the aftermath, when things do not go entirely according to plan; his betrayal and the loss of the paintings; and his flight from the forces of the law, having become a wanted man. It is about character, motive and detail. And even then we do not get any easy answers. I like to think his motive was to do something significant, to make his mark on Framingham, to prove his father wrong; however I could very easily be wrong. It might have been just for the money, but if so his choice of painting seems a little obscure – there were more valuable artworks available.

So if you like heist movies with lots of car chases and bank vaults being blown open, do not go to see this – you will join the 62% of viewers who think it was way too slow. Conversely, if you like your cinema gently paced, real, intelligent and thought-provoking, I whole-heartedly recommend it.