Mud (2013)

Jeff Nichols is on the fast track to becoming one of the great modern film-makers. His last picture was Take Shelter, a masterpiece, which featured a career-changing performance from Michael Shannon. Now Nichols does it again with Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey in perhaps the greatest of several great roles he’s had in a row during the last few years. This is the kind of movie that thrives on setting. Like Beasts of the Southern Wild, it takes place in a modern America that seems so foreign because it’s unlike anything we’re accustomed to seeing. The main characters are two young boys, Jacob Lofland and the remarkably convincing Tye Sheridan, who are at that stage of early teen years where they’ve only just discovered that girls are different than boys and utter mystical swear words when nobody’s listening.

These boys live in houseboats on the Mississippi River, one with his constantly fighting parents and the other with his lazy, bad-influence uncle. One morning, feeling particularly adventurous, they sneak away on a motorboat into an enormous area of flooded water in the middle of which is an island. This early scene, with the camera zooming over the vast emptiness of this watery landscape, accurately sets a fantastically mysterious tone for the rest of the film. On the island, the boys come across a large boat that has been turned into a makeshift tree house by the flooding, as well as a lone man who says his name is Mud and that it would be real great if he could get some food. McConaughey as Mud is a real marvel. Utilizing all the things that have become a part of his screen persona, especially that unmistakable Southern dialect, a character is created that is equally familiar and unrecognizable. As violent a man as Killer Joe, but twice as restrained, McConaughey displays an incredible grasp of his talents that proves once and for all why he has attained the star status he has. You can write a character like this, but it takes something more to actually become him.

Mud is an example of amazing storytelling, even without much of a story to speak of. I believe Nichols’ films are destined to become American classics, and this one in particular feels like one of those tall tales that are rooted in a basic reality, but grow into areas of fantasy. During the film, there is a notable difference in mood between the scenes on shore and those on the island. Even though it is all a pretty basic coming of age tale, there are those moments where it becomes something greater, those images that set off the whimsy trigger in our brains. The boat suspended in air, Mud’s apparent ability to appear and disappear at will, the group of cold-blood assassins kneeling in prayer for the success of their imminent murder, a 14-year-old’s awkward first kiss; these are the sort of iconic moments that you find in those classic films that resonate through the decades simply because they were so original.

This is truly as close to perfect as movies can get, thought-provoking and involving throughout and filmed with a rare, attentive beauty. The casting is exceptional, with Reese Witherspoon making a special impression as the only character who really gives the impression that she knows what she’s doing; everyone else seems to exist in a closed-off world, with that big Mississippi river as the border. Jeff Nichols is a mature, gifted writer and director, whose work evokes the same literary timelessness of, say, Mark Twain. Pardon my awe, but Mud is just one of those movies that actually deserve it.

10/10