percyporcelain

I enjoy pretty much any film nowadays that doesn't beat me over the head with relentless cheesy music so The Mastermind scores highly in this respect with lots of silence, but great modern jazz periodically that put me in mind of Lift to the Scaffold (Miles Davis wasn't it?). The attention to period detail is also great, transporting you back to 70s fashions, cars, design. What about the story? Well, it's a little implausible but some people do live double lives, and art lovers have been known to go rogue (e.g. Germany and Norway in recent years), stealing works they love. The last half hour turns into a kind of dustbowl drama as the anti-hero descends into the life of a hobo, Grapes of Wrath-style, then gets sucked into student protests and finally carted off in a paddy wagon. But lots to enjoy and a great antidote to blockbuster schlock.

This film leaves no cliche unturned and resembles a 2-hour pop video, endlessly emotionally repetitive so if you like going round in circles and watching the same scene of people floating about in a sepia tank full of floating bank notes a thousand times over, or the lead actress gazing beatifically upon a cast of moribund steam punks with zombified eyes while a relentlessly monotonous soundtrack pounds you into submission, this is the one for you! To the extent therefore that this ostensibly deep and meaningful but actually vapid and turgid work resembles a vision of hell, it is therefore a remarkable success!

So good for the first 90 mins, fascinating and atmospheric with terrific performances all round, great attention to detail and plausible twists in the 'conclave' for the selection of the new Pope. But then the holes appear: how can Fr Lawrence (Fiennes) be both supervisor of the election and a candidate without being in an invidious position? Yet nobody seems to challenge his authority. One minute he's probing pruriently into the past of the candidates, then he gets mad at being asked to be a 'witchfinder'. Smears and conspiracies are exposed, yet the candidates disqualified as a result are not restored to the race. And finally (without wishing to spoil the surprise for folks), a 'wild card' candidate emerges and, after a few piously woke words to the electorate, is suddenly in the lead. Didn't work for me, but then I was on the side of the nuns in 'The Magdalen Sisters', LOL!