Having earned Sundance’s first Best Actor award for a trans performer, Lío Mehiel, Mutt arrives with a bit of buzz more historic than critical. Following a festival run that also included Berlinale and New Directros/New Films, Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s feature debut will open next month from Strand Releasing, ahead of which is a first trailer briefly encapsulating the film’s view of trans experience.
While recognizing its necessary social impacts we were somewhat mixed on the film’s overall form. Writing out of Sundance, Dan Mecca said in his review, “This is the feature debut for Lungulov-Klotz, and in some moments a preciousness shows. The saying ‘kill your darlings’ might come to mind: confessional dialogue that’s telling us what’s already been shown, lingering close-ups that run out of steam before we cut away. Yet there is both an honesty and urgency to what’s onscreen that proves essential.”
Also starring Cole Doman, MiMi Ryder, and Alejandro Goic, and with a needledrop courtesy Film Stage contributor Matthew Danger Lippman, Mutt opens August 18.
Feña, a young trans guy bustling through life in New York City, is afflicted with an incessantly challenging day that resurrects ghosts from his past. Laundromats, subway turnstiles, and airport transfers are the hectic background to this emotional drama that overlaps past, present, and future. Settling the disharmony of transitional upheaval in relationships familial, romantic, and platonic is Feña’s task at hand, and his resulting juggling act is equal parts skillful, fumbling, and honest. In negotiating his obliqueness, the poignant moments he finds between himself and others – as the distance between them closes – are warm, true, and touching.