Product Details

• Actors: Emile Hirsch, Tom Guiry, Richard Jenkins, Pablo Schreiber, Zachary Knighton
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Studio: Strand Releasing
• DVD Release Date: May 9, 2006
• Run Time: 94 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (29 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000EGEKRO
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #99,628 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "The Mudge Boy" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

The mudge boy chronicles the troubled life of duncan mudge a 14-year-old-misfit. Duncan while vying for the attention of his vacant father struggles to fill the emptiness brought on by his mothers sudden death. Studio: Strand Releasing Release Date: 05/09/2006 Starring: Emil Hirsch Richard Jenkins Run time: 94 minutes Rating: R

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

141 of 146 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Quietly Brilliant Little Film About Coping and Other Atrocities of Living, February 7, 2006

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Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Mudge Boy (DVD)

Michael Burke both wrote and directed this first class, finely wrought exploration of coming of age in the emotional battlefield of rural bigotry. Rarely has so much been said so successfully with so little dialogue. Burke is clearly a gifted filmmaker about whom we should be hearing much! The film opens with what appears to be an idyllic country road over which a person on an old bicycle is delivering eggs. As the credits are ending we see the person on the bicycle walk up a steep incline then fall to the ground. As the actual film opens we discover that this person was the mother of Duncan (Emile Hirsch in a career making performance), a fourteen year old young lad who is left mourning with his distant father Edgar (Richard Jenkins). Unable to wholly cope with the loss of his mother, Duncan holds closely to her remnants - a chicken as a pet who his mother taught him could be calmed by putting the chicken's head in Duncan's mouth, an old fake fur coat he wears to bed, and some kitchen skills he learned at her side. Edgar is resentful that Duncan isn't more helpful on their small farm and is shaken by observing Duncan's means of mourning his mother.

Duncan is a loner, hungry for relating, and encounters neighboring Perry (Tom Guiry, in another gripping performance), a seemingly macho kid who apparently is beaten (if not more) by his low-class father. The two bond, slowly, out of mutual needs. Perry defends Duncan's ridiculing by the local rowdy kids and even encourages Duncan to join the drinking bouts with the group. Yet Duncan remains an outsider, longing to be included, and when certain events occur with Perry (Perry urges Duncan to put on his mother's wedding dress in the secrecy of the barn and then progresses to having Duncan perform sexual acts with him, declaring all the while that he, Perry, is not gay...) only to have the incident be partially discovered by Duncan's father. At odds with what to do with his strange acting son, Edgar forces Duncan to work at meaningless jobs on the farm, help with the haying, and makes Duncan observe the burning of the mother's clothes and belongings.

Duncan seeks Perry's consolation after the above events and despite Perry's homophobic comments, Duncan manages to gain the kiss from Perry that he so desires as a resurrection of affection desperately missing in his life. Perry is further abused by his own father and participates to a degree in an incident of harassment by the local rowdies of Duncan and his pet chicken. It is the method in which this final confrontation ends that speaks so strongly about Duncan's needs and Perry's buried feelings. After the confrontation Duncan rides his bicycle home to where his father finally perceives the agony chewing Duncan's soul and the movie ends in one of the most life affirming moments ever captured on film.

The photography is magnificent, the musical score is spare and enhancing, and the acting on the part of every member of this well directed cast is superb. This is a film that deserves wide audience exposure, and especially for those young people who are struggling with their sexuality in the ugly isolation surrounding the lives of the main characters of this excellent film. Grady Harp, February 06

87 of 90 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mesmerizing character study with perfect performances, September 5, 2004

By 

James D. Leverton (San Marcos, CA USA) - See all my reviews
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Writer/director Michael Burke's "The Mudge Boy" is a small wonder--a methodically paced, nearly plotless meditation on loneliness, grief and the pain of being an outsider in a small town that is the only home you've ever known.

Duncan Mudge (Emile Hirsch), make no mistake about it, is one strange kid, and he would be regardless of where he was growing up. Unfortunately for him, it's in a small country farm town where the only kids his age seemingly are a gang of unruly, bored troublemakers. Making matters worse for Duncan, he is an obvious momma's boy whose mother has just died and whose father (Richard Jenkins) is a taciturn, emotionless type who doesn't understand or connect with his son on any level. Their relationship deteriorates further when Duncan, who obviously misses his mother greatly, takes to wearing her fur coat to bed and trying on her makeup. He also has a strange (to say the least) relationship with his mother's favorite chicken, whose head he tends to stick in his mouth (something about calming the chicken down). Then one day he starts hanging out with one of the town punks, a randy farm boy played by Tom Guiry ("Mystic River"), who is so supremely sexual in nature even the farm animals are not safe from him. He and Duncan, who is starving for love and attention, begin a tentative (and extremely homoerotic) friendship that turns on a shocking act of violence and degradation that will transform them both forever.

"The Mudge Boy" is definitely not for everyone. Methodically and hypnotically paced, it plays more like a French film than anything I have seen from this country in a long time. Many minutes go by in which very little, if anything happens and the supporting cast (all of whom are excellent) is made up of very average-looking characters who look like they just stepped out of the Appalachian Mountains, which is refreshing but will come across as off-putting to some. And then there's the relationship with Duncan and that chicken, which is unbelievably strange and leads to an ending that many people will absolutely hate and not understand, although after seeing the film twice, I must say it is honest and I cannot see the film ending any other way.

The real joy here is the performances. As Duncan, Emile Hirsch gives an eye-opening performance and is totally believable as the town oddball. Those who know him only as the handsome, charismatic prep school student in "The Emperor's Club" or the aspiring politician in "The Girl Next Door" may not even recognize him, even though he wears no makeup and changes his appearance simply through facial expression and a rather vacant look in his eyes. And Tom Guiry is a revelation as the older "friend." He is overtly, swaggeringly sexual, and entirely believable as a white trash farm kid. It is hard to believe this is the same actor who got his start as a child actor playing all-American kids in "The Sandlot" and "Lassie." This film, and his similar knockout role in "Mystic River" portends a bright future for this talented young man. And the wonderful character actor Richard Jenkins has one of the best roles of his career as Duncan's grieving father, who finally manages to connect with his son and give him the love he needs when he most needs it. There is no way it will happen, given the extremely limited release of this film and the fact that Strand Releasing probably has no money for Academy Award advertising, but I truly believe he deserves a supporting actor Oscar nomination for his performance.

"The Mudge Boy" will undoubtedly be marketed on DVD as a gay-themed film, but I think that is unfair to the film and gay audiences. Duncan probably is gay, but might also just be looking for love any place he can get it, while Guiry is simply a sexual magnet who would have sex with anything available if need be. Anyway, the film transcends that genre and works primarily as a meditation on loneliness and ostracism. It's definitely at times as strange as its main character. Cosmopolitan viewers, of whom I am one, will find much to like. Others, well, you have been warned. ***** (out of *****)

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Mudge Boy, October 1, 2004

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C. Rice-Gonzalez (Bronx, NY) - See all my reviews
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One of the most moving coming age films I have ever seen! The Mudge Boy is the "different," or in this case gay boy, in a small town and the struggles he experiences in his high testosterone town and with his father whose feelings and love for his son are imprisoned by his macho. The power and intensity of growing up "different" was written in such a strong and touching way that the film has stayed with me long after seeing it. I am going to buy it immediately when it comes out on DVD. The Mudge Boy is a film that should become a classic in gay filmmaking and should be required viewing for gay studies classes. If there is ever an official membership into the proverbial "Queer" club, the film should be given along with the "membership" card.