More than 70 years after John Steinbeck published ‘East of Eden,’ his story of family, morality, trauma, love, and the struggle between good and evil continues to resonate with audiences across generations.
Fran Kranz makes his directorial debut in the emotionally charged new drama, ‘Mass.’ The film centers on two couples, Jay (Jason Isaacs) and Gail (Martha Plimpton) and Richard (Reed Birney) and Linda (Ann Dowd) as they revisit a tragic mass school shooting that changed the course of their lives immensely.
The film takes place over essentially one long scene that extends throughout the entirety of the film. It allows for a raw journey of healing between the two couples as they attempt to revisit and process what happened on that tragic day. Exceptional performances are given by both Plimpton and Isaacs and Birney and Dowd and keep the audiences reeling as the events on that day are unraveled.
On playing such an emotionally charged character and working alongside Martha Plimpton, Isaacs said, “to be given a character as rich and complicated as [Jay] was an amazing gift and of course Martha is the best dance partner you could ever hope for. I just looked at her and she grounded me.”
Director Fran Kranz also wrote the screenplay to the film in response to the many mass shootings that happen in the United States particularly. “I’m witnessing the frequency of these events in our country. I had to confront those feelings again. I had to think of what would happen, can I move forward? Is it possible? And that’s what I wanted to write about.”
‘Mass’ is in select theaters beginning on October 8th.
We spoke with Martha Plimpton who stars as Megan, the mother of twin children in HBO Max’s Genera+ion, a series about a group of teens figuring out their sexuality in a small conservative town.
While methodical and perhaps better fit to be a play, ‘Mass’ is one of the most affecting and heartbreaking films of 2021