Fans of Blade Runner are in for a treat. Follwoing hot on the heels of Altered Carbon, Mute delves even deeper into our dark future.
The trailer for Mute shows a distopian future earth populated by gangsters, thieves and broken heroes. It’s the kind of disturbng and beautiful world you could imagine Jones’ father stalking through in any one of his many incarnations.
The director’s father, of course, was the great David Bowie and a touch of uncoventional, thought-provoking genius clearly runs in the family.
What may come as a shock is Jones declaring that Mute owes more to classic 1970s medical drama M.A.S.H. than to Blade Runner…
WHAT IS MUTE ABOUT?
Big Little Lies star Alexander Skarsgård plays Leo Beiler, a bartender in a futuristic Berlin who is looking for his missing girlfriend (Seyneb Saleh). His dark journey through the city’s underbelly brings him across a bizarre and twisted parade of criminals in a world where even the good guys turn out to be pretty bad.
WHY CAN’T HE TALK?
Leo had a terrible boating accident as a child which stopped him speaking. Whether he can ever speak again is a mystery.
Jones admits the central concept made it almost impossible to convince any studio to commit to the project. He calls it: “A dark and weird movie.”
WHO ELSE IS IN IT?
Everyone is talking about Paul Rudd and Jennifer Aniston’s boyfriend Justin Theroux. They play Cactus and Duck, two uncoventional surgeons who are quite possibly not entirely motivated by the desire to heal people.
Theroux is almost unrecognisable with a 1980s blonde hairdo but the most disturbing thing of all is how likeable they are, even as the audience starts to discover how truly wicked they might be.
HOW IS IT INSPIRED BY M.A.S.H?
Although the visual influences of the original Blade Runner movie are clear, this is true of almost every movie since its 1982 release. Jones revealed that the tone is far closer to the iconic medical drama, especially in the characters of Duck and Cactus.
Jones explained: “I was going for the humor from the Robert Altman version of M*A*S*H. As much as I love that movie and the relationship between Trapper John and Hawkeye Pierce, they are mean. They are really mean. And they’re funny and they are the smartest guys in the room, but they are mean people.
IS IT A SEQUEL TO MOON?
Jones admits he has been trying to make this movie for 16 years until he finally struck a deal with Netflix. He says it is a “spiritual” sequel to his 2009 sci-fi cult classic. Moon was set in 2035 and Jones had originally hoped to have its main star Sam Rockwell appear in a cameo in Mute.
WHEN IS IT RELEASED?
Mute will debut on Netflix on February 23.