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Mellow Mud Movie Review

Mellow Mud is a 2016 Latvian drama film directed by Renas Vimba and starring Elina Vaska. It’s a very good, moving coming-of-age flick.

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“I know you think I’m a terrible mother,

and that’s probably true“

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It follows the lives of Raya, a 17-year-old living in rural Latvia, her grandmother, and her little brother Robis as they are changed by a staggering turn of events that leaves the two having to learn how to survive on their own. Although it may seem unbelievable, the turn of events of grandmother dying and her hiding that fact in order to stay in the house with her brother and not got to orphanage could conceivably happen. It was ultimately very well executed that I bought it myself.

This level of strong execution, empathy and the engaging factor to this drama made this movie actually much better than the works of the Dardenne brothers with which this film was compared to. I have recently watched the brothers’ ‘The Kid with a Bike’ and for me this is a much better film, though it’s unfortunately not as well known.

The direction from Renas Vimba is very confident and the performance from Elina Vaska is absolutely terrific. Her Raya feels like this instantly memorable, entirely real female character with a striking look and a superb arc where she learns to grow up and to start caring for herself and her brother. I wished for more scenes with her brother, though, but those that we got are quite endearing.

Mellow Mud is at its worst in the romance subplot. She starts an affair with a teacher and this is another thing that she has to hide in the movie, but to me that was an utterly unnecessary detour that distracted from the overall storyline and her struggles.

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I liked the naturalistic approach here, especially its stunning cinematography. It makes use of the titular mud so well with very memorable outside sequences. The pacing is just okay as it could have been even more engaging, but there are many strong scenes of great emotional intensity you can find in this very well executed movie as a whole. It deserves more attention.