Mute is a film that I was initially hesitant to watch, mostly because of the extremely varied responses I had heard about it. The reviews were about half and half; half were saying it is Duncan Jones' crowning achievement, and the other half saying it was a jumbled mess of science-fiction. I, unfortunately, belong to the latter. Besides a strong performances from Paul Rudd, this film lacks so much that makes a sci-fi film compelling: a concise plot and an understandable aesthetic.
This movie suffered from a lot of different problems throughout its entirety. There is nothing that stands out as the biggest issue, it is simply every aspect of the film was just severely lacking in quality. The aesthetic world through this entire film instantly put me in a state of confusion. The setting is the near future (with typical flying cars, of course) that tries to blend different styles together unevenly. The main character Leo, played by Alexander Skarsgård, is somehow a loosely Amish protagonist, even though he uses a cell phone, lights, and many other electronic devices throughout the entire film. He lives in a futuristic Germany for whatever reason with a very strange cast of characters, all of which make no sense being in Germany. While the colors and special effects were done nicely, all of these aesthetic elements just do not make sense together to me. The strange, half-assed characters that Leo met along his journey seemed to have some sort of background in this world, but none of it was ever explored. To me, it seems like Duncan Jones had a certain vision in his mind, but did not provide context as to why everything was the way it was. It almost felt like this cinematic world was part of a comic book series, but the plot in this film was an issue directly in the middle of its run, with the audience already expected to know the beginning. This did not help the storytelling at all, as I was lost the majority of the time. I actually was not sure what the main goal of the protagonist was supposed to be until the third act or so. It wasn't until then that I realized he was searching for his girlfriend. I also did not realize that Paul Rudd's character was the antagonist until that point, either. Because of this pacing problem, the introduction to the film was so agonizingly slow that it messed up the mood of the whole movie. This did not assist the storytelling either, in fact it hurt it quite a bit.
While this film was plagued with problems, there were still a few notable moments that pleased me. Paul Rudd was definitely the shining aspect of this film, and his performance as the villain Cactus Bill was great. Justin Theroux's performance was halfway-decent, but it definitely only existed to enhance Rudd. Alexander Skarsgård's Leo was portrayed very well too, even though his character ended up talking in the end, which was very cliche and predictable. The scene towards the end where Leo found his girlfriend's body was very emotional as well, and his mute screaming/crying in that one shot was incredible. The final, more technical part that I enjoyed was the narrative unity regarding the bracelet and Leo holding his breath. The bracelet was seen in the end when Leo was taking the young girl to her grandmother, and he realized that it was the same one he had given his girlfriend Naadirah, played by Seyneb Saleh. The big reveal of the film was that the girl was the secret daughter between Cactus Bill and Naadirah, but this moment was heavily hidden in layers of confusion. The final part was one of the opening shots of the film with Leo holding his breath and drinking an entire mug of water. This happened multiple times throughout the film, but was not connected to anything until the final scene where Leo jumped off of the bridge with Justin Theroux's character in his arms. Leo held his breath and was able to kill the secondary antagonist, but other than this aspect, there was no relevance to Leo practicing this breath-holding previously in the film. This made no sense to the earlier story, but it was still nice to see that connection in the conclusion.
Overall, Mute was a very confusing film that had a few good parts but mostly suffered from its lack of coherence. I would only recommend this film if you were a strong fan of Paul Rudd, but do not watch this movie expecting an exciting or understandable story.
My Rating: ★★
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