Simply, this film is a little known gem of LGBT cinema. The performances are sublime: Emile Hirsch and Tom Guiry playing their roles as realistically and movingly (with the specific characteristics of their role) who manage to make this film an emotional journey that will get more than one reflect on the plight which still face many gay guys around the world. This reflection is another strong point of the film: the rawness that emulates perfectly fine as reality, gives great value to the script and the direction. The photography is excellent, beautiful. But forget about production resources. The script, Duncan's story is a case that can even be a real case of our neighbor. Very well filmed, with a poignant script and first-rate performances, this film is highly recommended as vindicating the LGBT genre.

There are two good aspects of this movie:1. Emile Hirsch's acting really stands out (he's not bad shirtless either)2. It does a good job of showing how forcing yourself into the closet twists you in unpleasant ways.Beyond that, the movie is pointless and goes nowhere, nothing more than a brief window into disturbed lives. They don't get much out of the experience, and neither do we.Since IMDb seems to think that reviews have to be wordy to be worth posting, I'll add that in some places, the movie plods (and I *don't* think movie has to be an action movie to be good: Maurice is one of my favorites). I have to give additional points to Emile for being willing to do some of the things it looks like he did for real with the chicken too (though I doubt the last bit was for real, hopefully).

This is a remake of the short film Fishbelly White by Michael Burke (1998). The plot line and characters are all the same, but the story is fleshed out in The Mudge Boy.In Fishbelly White, Duncan's character is more homo-erotic; the under-the-track-scene is more deliberate and graphic and explains much of what is left out of The Mudge Boy. In Fishbelly White, Duncan bites the head off his favorite chicken during the pick-up scene with the drunken youths and the rape scene never occurs.The two films make for an interesting comparison of the two director's visions.

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, March 05