at the AMC Burbank 16, you can often hear the crack of the building shifting as an adjacent theater’s film has a big subwoofer moment. hearing them scattered through The Mastermind as it slows to a quietude feels like some intentional and inspired sound mixing, watching the paint chips rumble off the surface of Americana as James (Josh O’Connor) bumbles through towns and cities taking from every kind of mother he can manage. the Vietnam War rages on in the background, the draft has presumably shifted into Nixon’s lottery, and peace protests are easily quashed. the institutions have failed James, an art school dropout, and so he, the son of a judge and a mother who reluctantly keeps him afloat, is destined for a life of breaking the social contract. here come the 1970s.