The Mastermind

The sixties have come to a close. Time seems to stand still. In a quiet suburb of Massachusetts, a would-be carpenter and despondent father takes up petty art thievery and starts planning a bigger scheme: to go after four paintings by Arthur Dove. In typical Kelly Reichardt fashion, what begins as a leisurely spin on the heist film grows into a stunningly observed analysis of the finer, unspoken points of the American dream: status, mobility, aspiration and political apathy, set against the off-screen turmoil of its era as a mirror to our own.

Cannes Film Festival: In Competition