Mute Date
Watching Cody Clarke’s “Mute Date” on the backside of the COVID pandemic, when the film is set in 2020, is compelling. Obviously, Clarke could not have known what was coming that year, but the film touches on themes and ideas that resonate in a year when social distancing, communicating outside of just speaking to one another, and the ideas of the world becoming dystopian have been considered by many of us. It doesn’t always land these ideas successfully, but the ones it does make the film an entertaining, and insightful, look at humanity forced to view the world, and our relationships, differently.
The film begins with Noah (Anthony Kapfer) receiving a package in the mail from Teller, a technological company. He has been selected for a beta test of a new technology. He swallows the enclosed pill, and goes to a designated meeting place, where he will be set up on a “blind date” with someone going through the same beta test. What is the pill? It will allow him to speak telepathically with Erica (Nina Tandilashvili), his blind date, and her with him. The catch is, however, that they will not be able to communicate through regular speaking for the duration of the date, which is four hours. As they meet, and get to know one another, there are other “catches” that will arise, forcing them to trust each other in a way it takes more than a few hours to build up.
Kapfer and Tandilashvili are fine in the main roles, but we don’t necessarily feel much compatibility between them as a couple, although that might actually be deliberate of Clarke’s part because of a final twist he has for us in the end which I will not reveal here. The heart of the film is about Noah and Erica communicating and getting to know one another in the park where they have to meet (and stay) for the duration of the date. That can cause problems when it seems as though medical emergencies might arise, and communication for someone is silenced because of one of the “terms of service” built into the technology. Those ideas are amusing and relatable in how annoying they would be as us, the viewer, as much as they are for the characters themselves. All the while, Noah and Erica need to find new ways to communicate with one another, and are asked to stand up for each other during the film’s 80 minutes that reminded me of how we were asked to look out for our fellow humans in the actual 2020. Some people treated it respectfully, while others just treated it like an experiment and decided who would be expendable, and who wouldn’t be. By the end of “Mute Date,” that’s more true than we realize of both the past year, and Clarke’s film.
