Master: Film Review
I knew almost nothing about Master when I saw it and went into it completely cold. But I knew all I needed to know – that it starred Regina Hall.
She plays Gail, an English professor and the first housemaster at Ancaster College, a fictional Ivy League-style university in Massachusetts. One of her students, Jasmine (Zoe Renee), is struggling. She believes she is being hunted by the witch who claimed the life of a Black girl who lived in her dorm room many years before. But is the witch legend actually real? Or is Jasmine suffering a mental breakdown?
Mariama Diallo, who also wrote her feature directorial debut, uses the psychological thriller to tell a story about race. All three women – Jasmine, Gail, and Gail’s colleague Liv (Amber Gray) – suffer from being in the minority at the predominantly white institution, which has a handful of people of colour. It illustrates the microaggressions that they endure constantly, the alienation they experience, and how they struggle to be treated the same as their white counterparts. It also shows how futile it can be to try and change a very old, very white institution.
I like what Diallo had to say about race but the message gets lost with the supernatural witch element. It felt like Diallo had so many ideas and couldn’t figure out how to mesh them together in a satisfying way so the race drama and horror feel like two separate threads rather than a cohesive whole. The final act felt so muddled and unclear. The horror aspect basically disappears without any form of resolution and the film leaves various strands hanging when it ends. There was a late twist that excited me and it literally went nowhere. So frustrating.
I cannot fault the lead actresses though. Hall doesn’t get an awful lot to do in the first half but she is terrific later on when she gives a highly emotional portrayal of someone who is fed up and exhausted with the college. Renee is the audience’s eyes into this new world and is so nice and smart that you want her to go somewhere that treats her with the respect she deserves. Gray’s character is something of an enigma and a mystery the film never manages to crack.
There are some unnerving, creepy, ominous scenes but the film falls short as a horror and short-changes its race drama by featuring the distracting supernatural element so heavily. Diallo didn’t fully explore her themes and see the threads through to a satisfying conclusion. I expected and wanted more from Master so this is a shame.
On Prime Video from Friday 18th March