THE MUDGE BOY
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2005 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ***
Tender, touching and tragic, THE MUDGE BOY is a coming of age drama that is also rewarding and redemptive. A Sundance award winner, it tells the story of a boy who, as the director told us at our screening, was "too sensitive" for his small town.
In a nicely nuanced performance, Emile Hirsch (THE EMPEROR'S CLUB and THE GIRL NEXT DOOR) plays a teenager who misses his mom, who dies of a heart attack in the movie's opening scene. Although his "friends" call him "chicken boy" with much derision, his real name is Duncan Mudge.
Living in a remote, idyllic-looking farm community, Duncan is the odd man out among the local kids. A short seventeen-year-old, he still rides an old bike in whose basket he likes to carry the pet chicken that he and his mother raised. In contrast, his friends, who let him come with them on occasion only because he sometimes supplies their beer money, ride around in a big in-your-face pickup -- the type that has a Confederate flag on the roof, big exhaust pipes and tires larger than cows. They treat him badly, especially their nominal leader, Perry (Tom Guiry from MYSTIC RIVER), who hints that he has sex with farm animals. Perry's bruises from his father provide more than hints than Perry is an abused lad.
Duncan is a boy with a "secret," but it's quite unlike most movie secrets. His secret, taught him by his mother, is that you can calm chickens by placing their head in your mouth and putting your lips firmly around their necks. And, it appears to work, although it puts instant foreboding into the audience for an obvious possible scene, which may or may not happen later.
Too old for teddy bears, Duncan instead finds solace in his mother's old clothing, which he cuddles like a stuffed animal, and, yes, sometimes even puts on. But, if you think Duncan is a cross-dresser, you've missed the point of the movie.
Michael Burke, the film's writer and director, makes just the right editorial choices. Characters are fleshed out enough to be real and sympathetic but with enough left unsaid so that the story's ambiguities become its best and most affecting attributes. Finally, veteran character actor Richard Jenkins is especially good as Duncan's only slightly flawed father. If you're like me, you have grown sick and tired of seeing only dysfunctional families in films. Perry and his dad are dysfunctional enough, so we didn't need another such relationship. And, whatever you do, if you hate the film -- very unlikely -- stick around for the very last scene, which is as terrific as it is simple.
THE MUDGE BOY runs 1:34. It is rated R for "strong sexual content including graphic dialogue, a rape, and language" and would be acceptable for most teenagers.
The movie was shown recently at the Camera Cinema Club (http://www.cameracinemas.com) of Campbell and San Jose.
Web: http://www.InternetReviews.com
Email: Steve.Rhodes@InternetReviews.com
Want free reviews and weekly movie and video recommendations via Email?
Just send me a letter with the word "subscribe" in the subject line.
========== X-RAMR-ID: 39619 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1372832 X-RT-TitleID: 1132349 X-RT-SourceID: 703 X-RT-AuthorID: 1271 X-RT-RatingText: 3/4
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews