I saw the premiere of this movie at the Sundance film festival. It starts out as a rather intriguing character study in a beautiful agrarian setting. The audience is immediately endeared to the main character, Duncan, played excellently by Emile Hirsch. However, Duncan's vacant naivete becomes ridiculous. The film doesn't go any deeper into him than it did at the beginning. Duncan is also rather stupid. Of course, he's meant to be pure and innocent, but the concept just goes too far. Duncan is silly enough to take his dear pet chicken on a truck ride with some crazy drunk kids, and he continually goes back to them despite his acknowledgement that they're only playing with him. A search for acceptance would be a credible explanation if Duncan weren't so relentlessly stupid for the entire film. There's no enlightenment. There's no character arc. And I wouldn't suggest that an animal rights activist (like myself) should watch the ending. I won't give it away, though I almost already have. In any case, when an audience member asked the director/writer, Michael Burke, why he chose to give the film the ending it has -- which was undoubtedly the lurking question that everyone was mulling over but afraid to ask -- Burke answered, "Well, I got to the end and -- that's what happened!" Here we were all expecting some story of catharsis and liberation, and it was revealed to us that not only did the ending have no thought behind it, but the rest of the movie was thoughtless as well. The actors are great, and there are a few suspenseful scenes, and Duncan is rather lovable if you don't think much about it, but if I weren't an Emile Hirsch or Thomas Guiry fan, I'd skip it. There's nothing to learn or discover here.
Review of The Mudge Boy
