Hi, this is Daniel Garber at the Movies for culturalmining.com and CIUT 89.5 FM.

There are a ton of movies opening this weekend with lots of choices for every taste. This week I’m looking at three of them, all about outcasts and rebels. There’s a self-styled art thief in Massachusetts, a daughter fighting her mom when two families are brought together by tragedy in North Carolina, and a pair of cousins trying to save the earth… by kidnapping a CEO they think is an alien.

The Mastermind

Wri/Dir: Kelly Reichardt

It’s 1970 in Framingham, Massachusetts. James Blaine Mooney (Josh O’Connor) is an architect who is down on his luck. He loves his wife Terri (Alana Haim) and their two bright sons, Carl and Tommy (Sterling and Jasper Thompson), but he’s just not earning a living. He has no clients, and is forced to borrow money on the sly from his high-society mom. (Don’t let your father know about this.) He is smart, savvy and full of ideas but spends most of his time puttering around with his ne’erdowell pals. But now he has a get-rich-quick scheme he’s sure will solve all his family problems: stealing modern paintings from his small town art museum.

He tests and calculates every step: a sleepy unarmed guard, no alarms, clear exits, art easily taken off walls. He even has a stolen getaway car, and two henchmen with pantyhose to pull over their faces. It’s foolproof, and they pull it off with barely a hitch. But things goes south when one of the robbers gets caught at another job and spills the beans to the cops. James is labeled the mastermind behind the crime and is forced to flee the town and his family for an uncertain future. Where will he go and how will he survive on the lam?

The Mastermind is a brilliant period piece, a portrait of an America full of sketchy bus stations and flophouses, totally free of patriotic nostalgia. It’s set against — but separate from — the widespread antiwar protests of 1970. Josh O’Connor portrays James as a flawed antihero, who is nevertheless sympathetic. He commits his petty crimes wearing wooly sweaters and corduroy pants. The details in the production design are astoundingly precise. Kelly Reichardt is one of the best American directors you’ve probably never heard of. She makes films, not high-concept schlock and if you haven’t seen her movies, this is a good one to start with. The Mastermind is one of those movies that starts in the middle of things and ends suddenly, before you think it’s over, but it all makes perfect sense. 

This is a really good movie.

Regretting You

Wri/Dir: Josh Boone

It’s 17 years ago on a hot summer night in North Carolina. Two teenaged couples are at a pool party: Morgan and Chris, and Jonah and Jenny. Morgan and Jenny are sisters, Chris and Jonah best friends. They say opposites attract; Chris and Jenny are wild partiers, who like getting drunk and having wild sex, while Jonah and Morgan are smart, conscientious and non drinkers. Fast forward to the present.

Morgan (Allison Williams) has been married to Chris for 17 years, and they have raised their daughter Clara (Mckenna Grace) since they were still young. Jonah (Luigi-Mangione-lookalike Dave Franco) left town soon after graduation but came back recently and restarted his relationship with Jenny, soon leading to a newborn son. And then there’s Clara: everyone loves her. She’s a high school senior who dreams of becoming an actress after college. She tells her aunt Jenny all the things she can’t tell her mom; she’s like her best friend. She adores her dad Chris, and respects Jonah, who is also her high school teacher. And Clara is crushing on Miller, a popular guy at school,(Mason Thames) who lives on a farm with his gramps, cause his dad is in prison. He likes movies, sucking lollipops and moving roadsigns. But he has a girlfriend so he’s a no-go for Clara.

But everything is messed up when Chris and Jenny are killed in a terrible car crash, leaving Clara without her Dad and her Aunt, Jonah without his lover and the mother of their baby, and Morgan without her sister and the only man she’s ever been with. So Jonah turns to Morgan to form a make-shift family to deal with shock, grief, and the temporary raising of their two kids. (Clara and her Mom aren’t talking.) And while all this is going on, Clara and Miller start hanging out. Can these estranged family members adjust to the drastic changes? What secrets will be revealed and what hidden loves awakened?

Regretting You is a very conventional drama/romance about two families recovering from unexpected loss. It’s also a coming-of-age story, along with some unrequited love. Based on a popular novel, it’s a very easy movie, with nothing transgressive: its set among church and proms and school plays and going to the movies. The characters are pleasant, and its directed in an easy-to-watch way: texts sent between Clara and Miller are also voiced, so no need to read. The story is divided between the grown ups and the teens, with the teens the more interesting half. But what’s weird about this one is the catastrophic events all happen off-camera, and toward the beginning. The rest of the movie is just about mending relations and recovering from the shocks. So instead of building up to a satisfying emotional purge, this one starts with the dramatic shock and then just coasts.

While I don’t regret seeing Regretting You, it’s not my preferred type of movie.

Bugonia

Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos

High-strung Teddy (Jesse Plemons) and shy, neurodivergent  Don (Aidan Delbis) are cousins. They share a dilapidated house they inherited along with an attached farm, where they eke out a meagre existence — dressed in filthy Hazmat suits — through the cultivation of honey bees. But the bees are disappearing. What’s happening to their colony? They also work at a shipping station for a nearby big pharma corporation that specializes in lethal pesticides. Teddy holds a special grudge toward that company for past digressions it inflicted on him and his family.

The company is Auxolith and its CEO is Michelle (Emma Stone), a high-power, alpha careerist. She lives a magazine-like lifestyle in her modern mansion equipped with high security. She is a perfectionist, who only eats heathy food and insists her hair, makeup and power suits are always flawless. She works out using the latest machinery and is fully trained in martial arts. At work, though surrounded by a retinue of yes-men, she seems oddly sterile and detached from all her employees. 

But everything changes when Teddy — with Donny’s help — kidnap Michelle and drag her, undetected, to their lair. They shave her head, tie her to a bed, and cover her skin with weird emollients. Does they want money? Fame? A platform for their manifesto? No! Teddy is convinced Michelle is personally responsible for widespread ecological destruction of the planet — including his bees. And her motive? He is convinced she’s an alien from Andromeda with ties to a mothership parked just outside of the earth. Where do his bizarre theories come from? How can Michelle escape their clutches?

Bugonia is a weird movie pitting an eco-terrorists against a cold billionaire industrialist. Like all of Yorgos Lanthimos’s movies, Bugonia is simultaneously hilarious and disturbing. Grown adults talk like stilted children saying profound but outlandish statements. It’s laden with conspiracy theories, that are no less ridiculous than the corporate-speak the other half uses. Lanthimos likes to cast the same retinue of actors from his past pictures, so Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons are back again playing more quirky oddballs (though Aidan Delbis is entirely new). Bugonia is comical and absurd but also dark. 

I really like Lanthimos’s style, but some people hate it; he’s not for everybody. But if you’re looking for something wack and dark and weird, you’ve got to see Bugonia. 

Bugonia, Mastermind and Regretting You all open in Toronto this weekend; check your local listings.

This is Daniel Garber at the Movies, each Saturday morning, on CIUT 89.5 FM and on my website culturalmining.com.