The Mosquito Coast 1.1-2: Edgy, Attractive, Enlightened, and Important

I caught the first two episodes of The Mosquito Coast, up on Apple TV+ on Friday, April 30.  In a word: superb!

I suppose its closest streaming cousin these days is Ozark on Netflix.  Both series deal with a family on the lam in the boondocks from a big city and some kind of life of crime.  But The Mosquito Coast -- adapted from the Paul Theroux 1981 novel of the same name, made into a movie in 1986 starring Harrison Ford -- has a life and an energy and a point of view all its own.  And it's attractive and even enlightened and important.

Allie Fox is not just a criminal, or maybe not even a criminal at all, except when he has to be.  He has a philosophy, which condemns Democrats as well as Republicans, as well as industrial waste, poverty, and anti-vaxxers.   He also invents kludgy but workable contraptions, and can talk fast enough to get himself and his family out of most but not all jams.

Allie is played very effectively by Justin Theroux (Paul's nephew!), who serves up just the right mix of righteous intensity and twinkle-in-his-eye zest for life and creative, off-beat ideas. Melissa George who is always a pleasure to see on the screen, plays Justin's wife Margot, and she also brings to this role a good mix of motherly love, quick thinking, and joie de vivre.  And the two teenage kids -- Logan Polish as Dina and Gabriel Bateman as Charlie -- put in really powerful performances.

The second episode in particular offers a compelling narrative of immigrants and life on the southern border, and couldn't be more pertinent to today's headlines.  The whole series has an edge and a timeliness, and I'll be watching and reviewing the remaining five episodes.

Mute - Cyberpunk Sound and Fury, and Light

Just saw Mute on Netflix, latest movie from director Duncan Jones, of Source Code fame, and starring mainly Alexander Skarsgård (True Blood, and Big Little Lies) with supporting acting by Paul Rudd and Justin Theroux. Wikipedia reports that Mute "drew unfavorable comparisons" to Bladerunner, but that's just dumb (the comparisons not the report), since there are no androids that I know of in Mute.  There are all kinds of cybernetic body enhancements and replacements going on - like in The Six Million Dollar Man - and the flavor is definitely LA cyberpunk, even though the action takes places in a future Germany.

Germany is no accident in Mute.  The hero, Leo, is Amish, and he's mute because his Amish mother didn't allow surgery on her son when his neck was injured in some kind of boating accident, or in some accident in the water.   (By the way, although I suppose a given Amish bishop could tell his followers not to accept modern medical care, that's not something that most Amish do.  It's a common misconception that the Amish say no to all technology, when in fact they carefully pick and choose - see my The Amish Get Wired - Wired? published in Wired way back in 1993 for more.)

But back to Mute, Leo's Amish heritage is a good touch, because it helps him fit into this brave new world in Germany (Amish are of German descent).  The movie is superb on detail in this future, including Leo not being able to order food - which could be delivered to his dwelling, when he gets home, via droid - because he's mute, and the ordering app can't respond to anything other than voice.  And the violence, though sometimes a little hard to take, makes some logical sense in this future, in which most body parts are as replaceable as the parts of your car.

The plot is a little obvious and slow at first, but tightens up with a strong wave of well-motivated developments at the end, and a dedication to Jones's father David Bowie and his childhood nanny Marion Skene.  Recommended for fans of Bladerunner, The Six-Million Dollar Man, and Banshee - and, hey, you can see it for free on Netflix if you're a subscriber.

                     more Amish in science fiction

            more science fiction with David Bowie