What’s a better way for a man to spend his time: building a successful business or pursuing a delusional scheme of self-destruction? In Kelly Reichardt’s The Mastermind, supposed carpenter James Blaine “JB” Mooney (Josh O’Connor) is confident of the answer to this one. At his parents’ house for family dinner, JB’s father Bill Mooney tries to agitate him with news of a peer’s thriving business.
Bill: He’s the boss of his own outfit. Tells the whole team what to do.
JB: He spends all his time balancing books, scheduling, on the phone.
Bill: Those are the tasks of the top man.
JB: It’s an idiotic way to spend your time.
It’s not long before JB kicks off a shambolic museum heist that unravels his life.
His is an outsider’s creed — and one shared, paradoxically, by the leading men of nearly every major critically acclaimed film this year. These are no wolves of Wall Street: male protagonists are on screen this year searching for meaning, solace, or glory anywhere but in the workplace.
In one group, we have quitters like JB. Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) declines shoe shop management for table tennis in Marty Supreme; Marcelo Alves (Wagner Moura) would rather become an enemy of the state than work for a new corporate stooge in The Secret Agent. Wouldn’t these guys stick around for a job where they actually get to do what they love? Not if Sonny Hayes (Brad Pitt), the wheelman of F1, is any indication. While he may love to drive, he turns down a steady job at the pinnacle of car racing in favor of gig work and his independence.
Another set is working hard at hardly working. Is This Thing On?’s Alex Novak (Will Arnett) focuses on stand-up comedy, not his finance job. Bugonia’s Teddy Gatz (Jesse Plemons) clocks in at the warehouse only to sustain his basement conspiracy laboratory. Weapons’ Archer Graff (Josh Brolin) ostensibly owns a construction business, but is mainly using its assets to hunt those responsible for disappearing his…
Auteur: Stephen Lurie
