The Worst Film Ever

the audience applauded

Powerful

The acting in this movie is really good.

this film is about a boy who is brought up in isolation with his mother which he was very close to, and his father whom he looked up to but never got the same response in affection as he did with his mother. thus creating an imbalance in the emotional side in Duncan.as children we always emulate our (loving)parents. and as children we learn 95% FROM WHAT WE SEE AS WE DO NOT UNDERSTAND WHAT THE PARENTS OR ADULT WANTS when they speak. its amazing how that point is never brought up.so when Dun can's mother died so did the emotional security that instinctive feeling of nothing can go wrong.Duncan tries his father but fails to get the response.AND LIKE WE ALWAYS DO AS HUMANS, WHEN WE FAIL WITH THE FAMILY WE TRY TO GET IT FROM SOMEWHERE ELSE, AND IT DOES NOT MATTER WHERE FROM AND WHAT PRICE WE PAY, AS LONG AS WE GET THAT EMOTIONAL FIX, THAT SECURITY BLANKET THAT FEELING. DUNCAN'S journey manifested into a homosexual experience because of the refusal of the father. Duncan didn't have a problem with his mother, he churned the affection of his father and if it meant that Duncan would make himself to be like his mother to get it he will. and he did. the end of the movie Duncan gets what he wanted. the affection of his father.

Having grown up in New York State, my "coming of age" and "out of the closet" was quite an experience. While my experience wasn't necessarily an easy one, after seeing this movie, it angers me to think that there are other gay men (and women) who are (or have) had to endure the pain, bigotry and humiliation that the main character did. This movie gave me a completely new perspective on how society has been a complete and utter failure to so many people. I wish I had the resources to help out everyone in need who is going through what "Duncan" is/has gone through. Life wasn't meant to be so painful, lonely and empty - and after watching this flick, I have no idea how the "Heartland" got its name... These so called "Church going" bigots and "good old boys" are more of an abomination than any of the worst sins that I can think of, and some day these bottom feeders will face their maker, for the hell they put so many innocent people through.Truly a heartbreaking film that will open your eyes, and one that you will never forget.

Great performance by Emile Hirsch, who more recently appeared in 'Into the Wild'. He perfectly captures the impossible isolation, confusion, and tumult of an adolescent wrestling with his mother's sudden death, his father's stoic ineptitude, and his sexuality, all in a rural middle-of-nowhere populated by an older group of (unfortunately stereotypical) redneck teens. However, like the pet chicken, the movie seemed to die a premature death--another 20 minutes or so to add some denouement would have helped. Also, as in Brokeback Mountain, the sudden sex depicted was the Hollywood equivalent of Bruce Willis surviving a fall from a 20 story building--a normal person would have needed surgery afterwards.

The sensitive hero, Duncan Mudge, beautifully played by Emile Hirsch, is victimized by a society characterized above all by fear and the cruelty this fear generates. In another lovely film with a similar theme, ("Get Real"), Steven, the main character asks, "What is everyone so afraid of?" Indeed that is the question that lurks at the core of this film. The answer is, of course, that everyone is afraid of being who he/she really is, thus earning the ridicule of everyone else who is suffering from a similar fear. Duncan seeks acceptance and affection, which he cannot get from his uncommunicative father, from a neighbor boy, Perry, whose instincts are in conflict, who is only half eaten by fear. Duncan tries to reach the better other half of Perry and crashed into Perry's ambivalence and is exploited in the process. Another reviewer here has said that Duncan is stupid. Can't Duncan see what is happening, why he is treated so cruelly by his peers? Why doesn't he give up his quest to be himself and conform? Isn't that what all of us do? I am put off by the question so often raised of whether this is a "gay film," or whether Duncan and/or Perry are gay. What bothers me about that is the need to categorize, to fix a label on a person, to commodify him. This provides an escape from seeing and relating to someone else as a complex person in his own right, not someone who fits in this box or that box. This need to classify, to objectify and to control is also a product of fear. I think it was H. L. Mencken who defined Puritanism as "that haunting fear what someone, somewhere, might be different." We are still in essence puritans.