Mutt is an accurately stressful snapshot of the life of Feña (Lio Mehiel), a trans man planning to pick his father up from the airport but constantly running into obstacles barring his way. He is determined to reconnect with his father, Pablo (Alejandro Goic) after having a falling out with his mother. But few things are ever so simple for him during this stretch of time, and Feña runs into some curveballs in the hours leading up to his father’s visit. His ex John (Cole Doman) reappears to care for his sick mother, Feña’s 14-year-old sister (MiMi Ryder) skips school to seek help specifically from him, under the radar of their manipulative mother, and to round things out, there’s a problem with getting a car to pick up his father to begin with. Despite taking place over the course of a couple days, Mutt very much feels like one very long day from hell. Rather than physical barriers in something like Scorsese’s After Hours keeping our main character from achieving his goal, Feña is bombarded with emotional ones.
Feña has started to build a relatively comfortable life for himself, outside the proximity of these people who re-enter his life. Still, even then he isn’t fully comfortable in this world. No one trans person may ever feel comfortable in every aspect of life the way that cisgendered people can. Something so mundane as cashing a check provides a world of stress for Feña already. He is repeatedly misgendered by a teller — yet this only begins to encompass the extent of his discrimination. The check has been written out to the name he was assigned at birth, and not the name he took great effort to change within the legal system. It’s an indication that he is being deadnamed on both sides, from his employer and the bank teller, where his identity is discredited by a supposed unintentional negligence and rejected based on what is arguably personal policy by the teller. Feña remains focused, yet these interactions have a cumulative effect on him that can overwhelm when you’re just trying to get things done in your life.
The bank visit is but one moment in Feña’s uphill journey to reconnect with his father. The large majority of interactions he has with people re-entering his life or just passing through it will be too familiar to all trans people watching Mutt, successfully eliciting discomfort associated with merely existing. These moments happen frequently, even to suggest we’re meant to learn from these interactions, and a trans audience may be put off with reliving moments like the above. It does reach a plateau of this type of approach, these moments all taking an emotional toll on Feña too, including when his father engages in it during private conversation.
After meeting with his ex John, Feña struggles with falling into the same patterns with him. John is not equipped to re-examine his sexuality, or at the very least educate himself on what Feña could be going through. Instead he engages in questionable behavior surrounding his ex that toes the line of respect towards him until hitting another breaking point between the two of them. Yet John seems more concerned about keeping family on his mind rather than acknowledging Feña’s identity emerging during the end of their previous relationship together. Respect is a theme that plays in three variations between each person interacting with Feña.
His surprise interactions with his sister Zoe shows that she has become pinned between the influence of their mother’s emotional abuse, and her own angsty confusion over whether her brother represents an authority she despises or if he has rejected this as well. Feña has escaped the control of his mother and has just begun to flourish, but Zoe is still very much under their mother’s authoritative thumb. Feña sees the opportunity to offer support to his little sister in a different method of leadership, aiming to educate her about the reality of his situation and to show Zoe that the world is better than the angry & cramped one that their mother painted for them.
Vuk Lungulov-Klotz directs a story specifically about the ordinary things that transphobia and transness makes unbearably difficult, and this is by design. We’re meant to hyperfocus on Feña’s frustration with taking two steps forward and four steps back at nearly every turn. Perhaps the most important thing to note is that the struggles he faces that are committed to film are so accurate; there is no exaggeration in showing the daily hardships Feña encounters. It challenges the false narratives that people who aren’t trans buy into about their supposed pain, created from rumors and spiteful hearsay. It may need more moments like those between Feña and his father, where an argument crops up surrounding the nature of his transition, but then leads into a moment of recollection, his father recounting a childhood memory that reminds him that his child has never left. It’s here that the respect Feña is searching for is satiated, and Pablo learns how to access that for his son.
Perhaps the message that can be taken from the actions of Feña’s father in contrast to others who perpetuate transphobic thoughts is that he has these flashes of compassion during his visit, something John will not do and Zoe cannot. It’s a possibility that parents are presented with the opportunities to get to know their children on such an intimately personal level, that they can also have access to this compassion. If they choose to tap into it and approach their loved ones with this compassion and respect for their choices, their earned autonomy, if they truly care enough to exercise the cultivation of this compassion they can finally appreciate the person their children are finally growing into. And there is a moment of solace waiting for Feña. He wants to be seen, needs to be seen. His efforts to get his father to realize may take a series of fights tooth and nail, but the tide will shift eventually and when that happens, it may be said that you can see clear to the ends of the earth.
Mutt is currently playing in select theaters courtesy of Strand Releasing.
Mutt offers an unflinchingly authentic portrayal of Feña's relentless journey as a trans man to reconnect with his father amidst a tumultuous sea of emotional barriers. A poignant snapshot of a day from hell, the film's visceral portrayal of everyday transphobia and discrimination is both harrowing and vital, challenging preconceived notions and exposing the true, unfiltered struggles faced by its characters. Mutt is a powerful testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the profound impact of compassion and understanding.
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GVN Rating 8.5
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User Ratings (1 Votes)
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Andre is an avid film watcher, blogger and podcaster. You can read their words on film at letterboxd and medium, and hear their voice on movies, monsters, and other weird things on Humanoids From the Deep Dive every other Monday. In their “off” time they volunteer as a film projectionist, reads fiction & nonfiction, comics, and plays video games until it’s way too late.