written by Michael Robert Johnson and Duncan Jones
Duncan Jones has, allegedly, been trying to get Mute made for some decade and a half. Presented as a sequel of sorts to his excellent 2009 sci-fi film Moon, this new film represents Jones's return to science fiction after the critical failure of his video game adaptation Warcraft. Given the pedigree of Jones's previous work, it's not hard to expect that this would show him regaining his footing after that brief stumble, but it's also a relatively safe career move. That it was Netflix who ultimately distributed it could indicate that it was too challenging for the traditional studios, but it could also simply indicate that the project wasn't coming together.
Netflix's willingness to let filmmakers do whatever they like allows for ambitious projects to gain a mainstream pedigree, but it also means they have a low standard of quality. In Jones's case, there's a reason the major studios wouldn't touch this: if Mute is a passion project, it's hard to see where the passion is directed, as this is a droning, persistently generic neo-noir project, and while it's admirably committed to its scattershot ideas, those ideas are overwhelmingly derivative, gracelessly grafting a Blade Runner ripoff aesthetic to a tediously creaky mystery. The downfall of Netflix's approach, it would appear, is that there's nobody to tell a filmmaker when their efforts just aren't working.
So get this: Leo (Alexander Skarsgård) is an Amish bartender in futuristic Berlin who lost his voice as the result of an accident in his youth. Now working at a strip club, he starts a relationship with the enigmatic Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh). When she goes missing, he resolves to do whatever it takes to find her. Meanwhile, Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd) is a black market doctor why is trying to get out of Berlin, having acquired forged documents for himself and his doctor. In his last days in the city, he spends time with his friend Duck (Justin Theroux).
Of these two plotlines, the Leo plotline has more direction, whereas the Bill plotline has more energy. Both are lethargic and sluggish, but at least the Bill subplot has fun performances from Rudd and Theroux, who do their best to breathe life into two properly repugnant individuals. Most of their antics aren't exactly funny, and the film pretty consistently presents the two as sleazy and unpleasant, but occasionally they have an amusing line.
However, to the extent that either character is provided with redeeming qualities, they're profoundly generic: Bill cares about his daughter and hates pedophiles, whereas Duck... cares about Bill, I guess? Their relationship is ambiguous but also overtly gay-coded, and while that does explain some of their behaviour, it doesn't make them any easier to sympathize with. Despite the efforts of the actors, both of these characters remain consistently, pointlessly repugnant from start to finish.
Leo, meanwhile, is a blank slate, a cipher without any clear character traits aside from an apparent short temper. That he is mute and Amish and devoted to Naadirah doesn't do anything to give him a personality, and for some reason, Jones decided he would frequently just avoid communicating whatsoever. Making matters worse, Skarsgård also frequently neglects to emote, instead spending most of the movie staring blankly at whatever will move the plot forward.
This bland characterization is worsened by the similarly bland narrative line, which presents Leo's devotion in the shallowest way possible - aside from his constant search for Naadirah, he also becomes aggressive whenever anyone questions her virtue. The two spend a little time together early on, but these scenes provide little insight, and are deeply trite regardless.
Which is a problem, because Leo's search is so self-serious in tone and yet so repetitive that the empty characterization becomes all the more galling. In the missing girl plotline, Leo meets a wide range of weirdos, but while one or two are moderately amusing, many are the usual noir cliches. All the woman are old or prostitutes, and the men range from hustlers to deviants to creeps, but are all blandly disreputable in predictable ways. Worse still, Mute consistently uses sexual and gender deviation simply as an indicator of weirdness, which at best adds a layer of blandness to otherwise relatively creative sequences, and at worst comes off as odiously judgmental.
Initially, there's at least a central mystery to where Naadirah might have gone, as Leo encounters a number of enigmatic clues, but the actual trajectory of the narrative is so uninspired that this hook loses its effect before the hour mark. Even when the film descends into its gratuitously sadistic climax, it's unflinchingly dull, and if Jones actually has anything interesting to say with this, it's unclear.
And then there's the setting itself, a fuzzy neon future which is blatantly derivative of Blade Runner yet constantly shifts to comparatively mundane settings. In some scenes, only the towering backdrop of skyscrapers at night tips the setting at science fiction, which might have been one thing were all the future technology entirely unnecessary to the story. In earlier versions, Mute wasn't even intended to be sci-fi, and it shows in the final version, which totally lacks either the heady themes of smart science fiction or the high-tech doodling of sci-fi action films. To the extent that it's about a man out of step with technology, it could just as easily have taken place in the present day. To his credit, Jones consistently finds ways to suggest future technology without explaining it, but when the tech isn't that interesting to begin with, what's even the point?
What made Jones spend so many years trying to get Mute made? Given how monotonous and uninspired the final product is, it's hard to guess. There's a minor connection to Moon, but it doesn't actually impact the story in any way; there's some vague subtext about family, but nothing particularly coherent; even the core gimmick, the protagonist's Amish muteness, serves as little other than an excuse to prolong the story to over two hours. There's nothing here that clarifies what Jones wanted to express, exactly what was stirring in his mind which hasn't been put on film countless times before, and the film's grim, ugly tone grinds that familiarity into tedium. Jones demonstrates the ability to do great worldbuilding, and even to maintain a mood, but Mute indicates that he can't tell a good idea from a stale or even bad one, and it's a worrying misstep for him as a filmmaker.
3/10
Mute
+ Interestingly subtle method of worldbuilding.
+ Rudd and Theroux give strong performances.
- Sluggish pacing and dour tone.
- Derivative narrative and setting.
- None of the characters are particularly likable or interesting.
- Doesn't appear to have all that much to say.
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