Mud, Jeff Nichols’ follow-up to the 2011 Cannes hyped Take Shelter, is an ambitious coming-of-age story.
Mud, a wanted man hiding out on a Mississippi River island, is played by Matthew McConaughey in a role that continues the actor’s most remarkable of career transformations, from clean-cut rom-com pretty-boy to respectable screen actor. Mud is revealed almost as a spectre, suddenly appearing for the first time from out of nowhere. So too, Mud’s surrogate father describes finding him as a baby alone, as though parented by the river. With crosses in his boots, which leave their imprint in the sand, and a shirt on his back that gives him “protection” from evil, Mud is a spiritual being. From early on, therefore, this spirituality is Nichols’ higher objective.
Ellis and Neckbone, played with scene-stealing ability by Tye Sheridan and Jacob Loftland respectively, are two friends in search of a summer adventure. They’ve found a tree house in the form of a boat surreally lodged in the branches, but it’s the boat’s resident, Mud, who turns out to be the greater source of adventure. Facing troubled home lives, the boys – especially Ellis – become intrigued and attached to Mud. A wanted man, Mud requests the boys’ help, first to procure parts to fix the boat, and second to send messages to Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), his first love.
Mud, it seems, has been something of a guardian angel for Juniper, protecting her from trouble but, in turn, getting himself into it. Mud’s surrogate father, Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard), warns him against putting the boys in danger for Juniper. While the boys are helping Mud, it is really them who require the help. Sometimes, it seems, guardian angels can be guarding the wrong souls. It is this revelation that gives the film its gravitas.
The film is very deliberately paced, as though concerned solely with connecting the points of its plot, but it is the feeling, the atmosphere, and the meaning that its pace creates that is more important. Like the literature of Mark Twain, which Mud is clearly inspired by, it offers us the time to consider the morality of the characters. The ancient Mississippi River is, as Twain knew, a spiritual place, where men are drawn to. The river authorities disrupt life, and the natural flow of a man’s path, and in ways this is what Mud is about: the moral choices of men when their lives face disruption.
Sometimes Mud might feel too neatly tied together, but look past plot and you’ll find one of the most profound films of recent times.
Mud, a wanted man hiding out on a Mississippi River island, is played by Matthew McConaughey in a role that continues the actor’s most remarkable of career transformations, from clean-cut rom-com pretty-boy to respectable screen actor. Mud is revealed almost as a spectre, suddenly appearing for the first time from out of nowhere. So too, Mud’s surrogate father describes finding him as a baby alone, as though parented by the river. With crosses in his boots, which leave their imprint in the sand, and a shirt on his back that gives him “protection” from evil, Mud is a spiritual being. From early on, therefore, this spirituality is Nichols’ higher objective.
Ellis and Neckbone, played with scene-stealing ability by Tye Sheridan and Jacob Loftland respectively, are two friends in search of a summer adventure. They’ve found a tree house in the form of a boat surreally lodged in the branches, but it’s the boat’s resident, Mud, who turns out to be the greater source of adventure. Facing troubled home lives, the boys – especially Ellis – become intrigued and attached to Mud. A wanted man, Mud requests the boys’ help, first to procure parts to fix the boat, and second to send messages to Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), his first love.
Mud, it seems, has been something of a guardian angel for Juniper, protecting her from trouble but, in turn, getting himself into it. Mud’s surrogate father, Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard), warns him against putting the boys in danger for Juniper. While the boys are helping Mud, it is really them who require the help. Sometimes, it seems, guardian angels can be guarding the wrong souls. It is this revelation that gives the film its gravitas.
The film is very deliberately paced, as though concerned solely with connecting the points of its plot, but it is the feeling, the atmosphere, and the meaning that its pace creates that is more important. Like the literature of Mark Twain, which Mud is clearly inspired by, it offers us the time to consider the morality of the characters. The ancient Mississippi River is, as Twain knew, a spiritual place, where men are drawn to. The river authorities disrupt life, and the natural flow of a man’s path, and in ways this is what Mud is about: the moral choices of men when their lives face disruption.
Sometimes Mud might feel too neatly tied together, but look past plot and you’ll find one of the most profound films of recent times.