Sometimes it seems as if everyone is capable of crafting a feature film debut that absolutely smashes it out of the park. Sometimes it doesn't seem that way. Writer-director Mariama Diallo definitely shows that she belongs in the former camp. Master is a twisted serpent of a film, one that explores race relations, and the entire structure of modern America (although not America alone), in a way that is consistently thought-provoking and tense.
There are, basically, three different story strands here, three women living lives that intertwine with one another. There's Gail Bishop (Regina Hall), the first black master of a New England university. There's Liv Beckman (Amber Gray), a professor who is applying for tenure. Liv is a friend of Gail, but she may have a big secret in her past. And then there's Jasmine (Zoe Renee), a freshman who is having some problems with racist students, as well as a problem with Professor Beckman, who she believes has been unduly harsh in grading her work.
Full of sadly familiar interactions, micro-aggressions, and the looming shadow of the weight of a history that far too many people keep trying to maintain in the present, Master is easily as smart and sharp a horror movie with the focus on race as the superb Get Out. It's just a shame that, in terms of traditional creepiness and scares you'd expect from a horror movie, this instead keeps things much more low-key and ambiguous, although I strongly suspect that Diallo meant everything to play out that way, allowing viewers to see what some people have to deal with every day, interactions that have either a sly or obvious implication that continually proves difficult for them to address directly, because they can either be accused of "seeing something that isn't there" or just rocking the boat.
The three main leads are all very good, and I'm particularly enjoying seeing Regina Hall take on such a wider variety of roles over the past few years (or maybe I was just watching her in the movies that were more heavily promoted because of them following some standard formula). She's an excellent mix of authority and nervous lack of confidence, emphasising how unsteady her position is. Renee is the woman who is most often placed in difficult situations, whether it's being left to clean up after others or being the victim of racist abuse, and she shows the eroding effect of everything affecting her daily life, like constant dripping water eventually damaging stone. Gray is the least likeable of the three leads, but also perhaps the most complex. On the one hand she is keen to please many of her peers, on the other hand she wants to remind them that African Americans aren't just there to be meek and servile in front of white people, her character always has a feeling of fakery about her, something portrayed well by Gray, who gives a performance that veers from the benevolent to the confrontational with a constant smile that seems to belie the real meaning of the words spoken.
Strange, uncomfortable, intriguing, and always worryingly believable, Master is a film that picks at an unsightly scab and forces people to look at a wound that isn't likely to heal for a hell of a long time, even if some people try to cover it over with sticking plasters that only succeed in keeping it out of sight for a while.
8/10
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