Josh O'Connor and Alana Haim do some thievery in The Mastermind first look clip

In an interview with Deadline, O’Connor explains how despite his criminal ambitions James can only manage a mundane heist. (It’s unclear in the clip if his wife is even aware he’s stolen anything.) As such, the artist whose work James steals is “someone who is not headline-grabbing at all. It’s someone worth a bit of money, but not quite worth what they should be worth. It’s Arthur Dove [a pioneer of American abstraction],” he says. “His artwork is kind of surreal, but it’s also, well, in my opinion, not that attractive. It’s funny because he is brilliant and he would sell for money, but it’s not stealing a Picasso. Even in his grand thievery it’s sort of underwhelming.”

Though you wouldn’t know it from The Mastermind first look clip, the film is set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War. O’Connor describes this as “traditional Kelly fashion,” which is “looking at the world through the people that fall between the cracks and not necessarily the people you’d expect. Often, she’s looking at artists and stuff like that, and it’s got that vibe. It’s almost like she’s looking at the Vietnam War, but averting her eyes.” The story is more so about James as a “failed artist,” O’Connor says. “He’s middle-class, he’s from a perfectly good family, but he’s in the outside of society insofar as he lives quite a plain life, an unfulfilled life. That’s what’s pulling him to make a name for himself. It’s almost more tragic in that he just feels forgotten,” the star muses. “He just feels like a regular Joe. And I guess Kelly’s asking, ‘What’s worse than being regular Joe?’ For someone who has a big ego, that’s not great.”

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