India, Dec. 13 -- Time moves in the subtlest ways in Kelly Reichardt's films. One of the foremost American filmmakers of this era, her films have a tough and tender observational style that never jolts us with action, but instead, the lack of it. There is nothing Hollywood-y about it. You look closely. From 'Wendy and Lucy' to 'First Cow', her compact character studies are evocative of a specific setting without shouting out loud.

In The Mastermind, which first premiered at the Cannes Film Festival earlier this year, Reichardt has managed to retain all of those qualities that made her work so beguiling, even as it is certainly the most narratively driven outing in her oeuvre. She situates the frame in 1970s Massachusetts to tell a heist ...