The latest film written and directed by Kelly Reichardt  (First Cow, Certain Women) comes to the screen at the same time real museum heist after what happened last  October at the Louvre in broad daylight.  A fictional story based on true events is set in 1970 in a boring, quiet suburban town that shows museum guardians sitting exhausted, sleeping while visitors walk around the exhibits.

The title refers to main character James Blaine Mooney (Josh O´Connor)  unemployed and art fan, son of a judge Bill (Bill Camp) who has a distant relationship with his mother Sara (Hope Davis) his provider of material support. James is married to Terri (Alana Haim) and is the father of two adventure companion boys (Jasper Thompson and Sterling Thompson) .

James financial crisis motivates him to design a plot to one morning steal four abstract paintings by American painter  Arthur Dove from the local art museum,  a place he and his immediate family visit often.  He can´t do it alone and contacts hoods to carry on the plan and complete the job. The heist becomes headline news and follows the perpetrators whose identities slowly become public, with consequences for James, who has to flee.

The slow-paced film has moral connotations, and its title refers sarcastically to the author of the robbery plan and the aftermath of it,  also to the portrait of a lonely and introspective man struggling in his daily life, looking for meaning and, by the end,  standing in the wrong place and time.  Josh O´Connor is perfect in the lead role as the meditative antihero,  making a  triptych with previous characters (La chimera, Rebuilding).

Film may be divided in two, the thrill of the heist plot and its circumstances in the first half, and the intimate drama / character study of the protagonist in the second. The context of the story is the Vietnam War and protests against it are shown.

7/10