Kelly Reichardt's new film *The Mastermind*, starring Josh O'Connor, depicts a low-stakes art heist at the fictional Framingham Museum of Art, inspired by a real 1972 theft at the Worcester Art Museum in Massachusetts. In the actual heist, two robbers stole four paintings by Rembrandt, Picasso, and Gauguin, worth about $7.72 million today, and shot an unarmed guard. The film, set in the early '70s, draws on details like two schoolgirls who witnessed the crime, but Reichardt deliberately makes the cinematic version less thrilling than the real event.
This matters because Reichardt's film challenges the typical Hollywood portrayal of art heists as high-octane capers, instead embracing a slow, meditative approach that has already sparked debate on social media. By focusing on a relatively obscure, resolved theft rather than famous unsolved cases like the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist, the film highlights how even minor art crimes can reveal broader cultural and historical tensions, such as the Vietnam War protests woven into the narrative.