Muted: Psychological Drama on Coming Temporarily Undone

Chris Zou’s Muted is a frenzied six-minute study session that at once should be familiar to (too) many and feels gratifyingly revelatory. It follows Jessica, daughter of Chinese immigrants, on the cusp of exploding or imploding, whichever can come and make it quicker. 

The pressure to excel academically and professionally seems to follow similar infinite growth mindsets as, well, the entire economic system at play today in most countries on earth. And so it follows that the subjects of these pressure systems are destined to, sooner or however later, buckle. Muted makes a psychological spectacle of that conclusion with the aplomb of high school theatre. It’s a treat. 

Cindy Xu as Jessica makes each of her furious tears count precisely because she and the film do not lavish too much attention on them. It is half past midnight, there are more pressing matters. Covalent bonds, polar and non-polar covalent bonds, or hell, neutrons. The alarm bells really go off for her study partner, Maddie (Morgan Lui) and set the climax off to its hurtling end when Jessica cannot answer what a neutron is, and rightly so—even chemistry dunces like yours truly could venture a rough idea for that one. 

The theatrical setpiece is stunning on nearly every count: production design, cinematography, music, performances, pacing (Zou, currently working on his next project with Sam Li of The Brother’s Sun and Ray Kam, is also editor as well as writer and director for the film). Though the spatial continuity does make you go hmmm, it does add to the disorienting effect of the scene as Jessica increasingly loses her grasp of the very idea of chemistry. 

By the time we finally see the origin source of Jessica’s undoing—her mother, played by Sunny Guo—it is a phantom, and we only see her at that. The voice has separated from the body, become untethered and somehow left the body kinder, but it only manages to make things worse. And when we do see the person proper, no tricks of the mind, the silence is of a different nature. The harshness has worn itself out for the night but Jessica, too, is too worn out to witness its absence or the appearance of that rare bird, sensitivity. 

But morning cannot be far away; the night’s demons and angels will have to be packed away unacknowledged. There’s a chemistry test to ace. 

Watch Muted Short Film Review