All right it’s time for a film that is the definition of being dialogue based. There is a whole lot of talking here and the characters don’t really get to leave the room once they’re inside. It’s an interesting concept but the execution is done in a way that prevents the film from being all that interesting. Each of the characters has to try and navigate their way through the conversation carefully so the pacing gets shot immediately and it all goes downhill from there. Now it’s hard to say if the positions themselves are a spoiler or not but since that is the focus early on, I’m going to lean on not. Throwing the warning out early though because if you do feel that’s a spoiler, then you’ll need to skip the whole review until you watch it.

The movie starts with a room being set up in a church. They are expecting 4 guests and the church lady is extremely stressed the whole time. We get a lot of awkward dialogue the whole time but finally the 4 people arrive. They are two couples and they are here to talk about a recent school shooting. Their conversation is going to get pretty intense because one couple are the parents of one of the kids who got shot, while the other couple are the parents of the school shooter who was then shot by the authorities. Can they come to an understanding?

Well naturally just from the premise you can see how this isn’t exactly a popcorn action flick. It’s all very serious and dreary the whole time. I think the idea of a debate of sorts would be pretty interesting but this isn’t really a debate. The parents of the first boy just really want to hear some regret from the other parents and try to convince them that their son was a monster. Meanwhile the other couple is doing their best to be pleasant but don’t want to back down on their position that he was still their son and otherwise was a good person.

As a result, it’s not like there is much of an end point that they can have here. The second couple has been taking heat from everybody around the world and may have even had similar conversations with other parents. Meanwhile the first couple can talk a lot but it won’t bring their son back so if anything it means that the conversation may just stir up old wounds even more. They all hope that this conversation will help provide some closure but will it do that? In my mind that seems like a pretty impossible task. I could see having conversations with other people but reaching that far across the aisle is probably going to be a bad idea 99% of the time.

Again I do find conversations like this interesting but typically the features I watch online are done in a much more aggressive ways. Think of something along the lines of Piers Morgan where the panelists are always yelling over each other and calling each other names or any Youtube debate with folks like Destiny, Asmongold, Haasan, The Crucible, Peterson, etc. They tend to be one dimension removed from the situation so they can go on TV and start yelling real hard as they press on the positions. You get the slightest fact or detail wrong and they will absolutely pounce on you right away.

In some ways that kind of conversation will tend to yield more results since you can try exposing the other side. Of course in this movie nobody is really in it to expose the other. Perhaps a little at first but again it’s more for closure. It’s just that it takes absolutely forever to get to any of the points. Anytime they start to get into some interesting topics like gun control, psychiatry, etc. they are cut off by one of the other characters to try and make more emotional arguments instead of looking at things logically.

By far I would say the couple who raised the shooter were the best characters here. They both did their best to be sympathetic and proper right from the jump. They said all the right things while also refusing to back down from their positions or relent on any point that would make their son seem like a monster. They kept strong here and just did a solid job. They were also able to look at the situation a whole lot more analytically and didn’t have as many emotional bursts as the first couple. Considering that they went through a whole lot as well, that was impressive. Whether or not they suffered more than the second couple will be debatable but ranking different traumas is ultimately pointless. Everybody suffered in this film which is the point that the film is trying to establish here.

Of course the first couple has a lot of reason to be upset but they were the ones mainly breaking the agreed upon rules like going into interrogation mode and launching into personal attacks. They were consistently more aggressive and having to walk around the room. I give the first couple a lot of credit for agreeing to meet up as well since this easily could have been a trap or some kind of surprise attack. Once they were all alone in that room, any number of bad things could have happened before any kind of backup would arrive. So the first couple also showed a lot of bravery.

The scenes with the church folks from the beginning and ending may have been a little too dragged out but I appreciated the attempt at trying to have a little levity in here. I wouldn’t have minded that as a subplot of them running around and maybe bumping into the room once or twice. It would have been a good chance to have a few cliffhangers too with one side landing a solid zinger as we cut away and then return.

At its core, I suppose the main issue here is that the conversation gets fairly boring pretty fast. You basically know all of the stances that the characters will take before they make them. This is of course because the film is trying to go for a lot of realism. You could picture this being a real conversation between two families with all of the crying and pausing that was implemented in the film. There are probably talks like this that go on every day but in a film you need to do some kind of enhancing to make it interesting. The film could have probably had its runtime cut in half and still preserved all of the core ideas that were brought in.

Overall, Mass may be realistic but it’s not particularly entertaining. I really think they should have had the lawyers from both ides involved. That way you have them being aggressive the whole time while the family begins to see the others’ side of view. The lawyers get kicked out in the climax and then we get the quick wholesome ending. That would definitely work well for making things a little intense. All in all, if this is a topic that you find interesting then you may enjoy the film but otherwise I do think you can find better movies that touch on the themes of forgiveness and moving past trauma like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Overall 2/10