it's a talk-therapy drama that packs a truthful punch; the movie announces Fran Kranz as a bold new filmmaker who has earned the right to excavate a subject as sensitive as this one
it's a study of human pain and anger in painstaking detail, supported by a script which is hauntingly realistic without dipping into mawkish or exploitative territory
Fran Kranz, has crafted an impressively bracing debut devoid of sentimentality; a difficult and impeccably acted film about forgiveness and blame; "Mass" may not be a particularly enjoyable experience but it's a strikingly effective one
Fran Kranz's poignant debut feature.. is a brave premise, handled sympathetically by Kranz; more importantly, the film beautifully expresses humanity's best aspects — our capacity to forgive and connect with the most unlikely of people
Fran Kranz undoubtedly draws upon his Broadway experience for a script that is both terse and mannered, yet utterly natural and organic; it is also a story of grace, perfectly told and etched into every understated frame
Fran Kranz has made a quiet, contemplative film on a subject of ongoing national urgency; It's a harrowing watch, but a cathartic one, with each of the four superb principal actors delivering scenes of wrenching release
Fran Kranz has crafted "Mass" as an intense, involving, moving and thought-provoking chamber piece of a film that explores the way two different sets of parents deal with the emotional aftermath of a school shooting, years after it occurred
a difficult but absorbingly intimate film about what happens to the soul of a country where indiscriminate death has been allowed to become a part of life & how the survivors work to share the burden that all of them have to carry for someone else's sins
"Mass", as maddening as it can be, still feels like an urgent and necessary movie, if not at all an easy one - and an exceptional opportunity too to watch four great character actors, finally called up from the sidelines to center stage, do what they do
"Mass" features several of the strongest performances you'll see this year, and directorial confidence and cleverness that makes what's largely a one-room, four-way conversation feel cinematic despite its deliberate claustrophobia
