The Mudge Boy [DVD] [2003] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC]

Interesting film. Emile Hirsch is an amazing actor, and this is yet another of his brilliant movies. Well worth a watch.

I have to agree with the other reviewers here in that this is certainly a film that will stay with you. If you have seen Dream Boy then you will once again find the same background scenery and farming lives that formed so much a part of that film. The rural isolation and silence is most notable too. Visually it is beautiful.The teenage boy is very well acted by Emile Hirsch. He's like a young Michael C Hall. He really does play vulnerable very authentically. We learn about his mother in bits and pieces even though the opening scene is of her dying. She remains the centre of the film and nearly every scene has her imprint somewhere in it even though we don't even know what she really looked like. She left her love for the chickens marked on her son's psyche so much that he took one of them as a pet - much to the bemusement of the local delinquents who take advantage of him.The death of his mother and his ambiguous sexuality mean that you never really form a definite understanding of where it is going or exactly what it means. It is up to the viewer to decide the meaning of the scenes at the end of the film - and they can be interpreted either way although the local toughie Perry is living a life every much as barren and confusing as the Mudge boy.His father - played by the father in Six Feet Under - is of course brilliantly acted. He is just as much devastated by the death of his wife but once again there are some scenes in the film where you find it hard to reconcile his behaviour with this apparent loss. Also his efforts to try and get his son to have some friends back fire and seem strangely misguided anyway. Again one for the viewer to make up his mind about.It will stay with you. And you will probably watch it again to see if your first impressions were right. Well worth watching twice.

This is a very interesting film because of its ambiguity. Is Duncan Mudge behaving in a 'weird' way (ie. like a girl) because his mother has just died and his father is hard to talk to, or is he gay? It's a difficult one, because I feel that when he gets older he may not turn out gay at all. On the other hand, he may. It's not clear and that's a good thing. We are left to form our our own ideas. The character of Perry is also very interesting because, for all his macho posturing, he is clearly attracted to Duncan and in the end he may turn out to be more gay than Duncan. However, it's the last thing he can succumb to in that sort of environment. The film is tender and yet cruel, especially the ending. But Duncan's reconciliation with his father is very affecting. His father is really, for all his 'indifference' to Duncan, obviously going through a traumatic period with the death of his wife, and finds Duncan hard to deal with. Nevertheless, he shows he can respond to the boy's pain. What I most liked about the film is that nothing is given to you on a plate. It let's you respond to it with your own imagination and few films do that.

Far from a great movie, it attempts to be many things but in the end becomes a confused muddle of a film. Some solid acting by the central characters but not enough meat on the bones as far as subject material. A disappointment I am afraid.

First of all, please be aware of just how very disturbing some of the scenes in this film are likely to be for at least some viewers. There are scenes of violence to animals, and also of sexual violence. However, the scenes seem to me to be honest (brutally so), and form an important aspect of how this film tells a tale that is both personal and specific to the characters, and can be understood in the broader context of the issues elaborated as well as hinted at. The acting is absolutely phenomenal all around, in particular the actor playing Perry, who had perhaps the most complex role to embody out of all of the truly complex characters, again all of whom are expertly adapted and presented by the actors. A gem that should be in print and available, and also should be available for streaming. Mercifully, there are reasonably priced used copies available, which is what I just finished viewing myself.

Emile never ceases to amaze me, the man is a top of the line actor. If you are a fan of his this is recommended for you.

This is one of those film’s that has grown for me with time and revisiting. I saw it when it was first released and I liked the film, and was floored by the performance of the young Emile Hirsch, but found some of its symbolism obvious, and other moments seemed odd for odd sake.But with two re-watchings since, those flaws have faded, if not quite disappeared, and instead what comes to the fore are; the terrific subtle performances of all the main characters, the eerie, quiet tone and deliberate pace that puts us in a rural world that seems a million miles away, and the brave film-making and story choices. Those jolt us out of feeling it’s just another indie film about a sexually confused kid who can’t fit in with his stony father (Richard Jenkins, wonderful as always), or the local beer swilling kids - who are trying so hard to be tougher,more macho and cooler than they really are. Sex, when it shows up, is brutal and disturbing, and the film ends on a coda designed to leave us both touched and revolted, pulled in and pushed away.Once you get passed the more familiar exterior trappings, I can honestly say Michael Burke has created a unique, one-of-a-kind little film, that’s unafraid to stir our emotions and memories of the horrors of adolescence, without providing easy answers. It reminded me of Flannery O’Connor, which is no small complement.

The DVD arrived quickly and is in as-advertised condition.

the Mudge boy is a story of a boy who is apparently a little slow and want to be friends with the so called normal kids and meet up with an older boy who apparently has problems with his sexuality due to the abuse brought on by his father and takes it our on this young boy who it totally in the dark about things and has a strange attachment to his late mother doing strange things with chickens and it is apparent that the older boy has sexual feeling for the boy and wants no one to know when he finally let loose and rapes the young boy you know he has problems a must see film if anyone wants to know about country boys.