Home » Cinema » Action & Adventure » Story Review: Mud by Jeff Nichols (2012)
08/25/2024 Mud movie review by Gioia Majuna
Matthew McConaughey and Tye Sheridan were at the center of an evocative portrait of adolescence and the sense of justice, intertwined with the thriller atmosphere of a manhunt on the banks of the Mississippi.
Mud begins with a boat in a tree. Its almost otherworldly presence attracts fourteen-year-old best friends Ellis (Tye Sheridan) e Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) on a small, pristine island along the Mississippi River in Arkansas to investigate.
The boat is ‘magical’ – what kid wouldn’t enjoy exploring something so outlandish? – but it also carries with it a certain sense of mystery and menace. Soon, Ellis and Neckbone discover that they are not alone on the island: a snaggle-toothed drifter named Mud (Matthew McConaughey) found refuge in the hull of the vessel, surviving on cans of food and walking along the small strip of land in boots decorated with crossed nails on the soles to “drive away evil spirits”.
The man – nicknamed Mud – asks the boys for help, first with food and then to deliver messages to the mainland, where his old flame Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) is hiding in a hotel room. Neckbone, a brash and foul-mouthed boy, is wary of Mud, but Ellis is determined to help him.
Faced with his parents’ impending divorce and his first steps in love, Ellis clings to the romantic story of ‘Mud’ like a true believer.
Written and directed by Jeff Nichols (fresh from the critical success of Take Shelter), Mud It’s many things at once, all enhanced by David Wingo’s poignant soundtrack.: an evocative portrait of working-class fishermen along the riverbanks, whose lives are threatened; a study of the dichotomy between river people and townspeople; a manhunt thriller tinged with tribal vengeance that recalls the director’s first film, Shotgun Stories; and a coming-of-age story of a boy searching for his own guiding light.
At the heart of every iteration of the film is the theme of what it means to be a manespecially from the point of view of the young and sensitive Ellis. Tye Sheridan, who had also appeared in The Tree of Life by Terrence Malick (the two films share the same producer, Sarah Green), is extraordinary, a reactive actor who breaks the hearts of the spectators when his eyes fill with tears at a rejection or when his face reddens with anger for having unknowingly betrayed the values he is still learning to understand.
The female characters in Mud, on the other hand, are not as developed.: they are respected and admired, but they are not represented from their point of view (Reese Witherspoon, while proving suitable for a tougher role, is almost a totem; she exists, like the other two main female figures, only in relation to men, in their power to influence and perhaps destroy them).
However, Jeff Nichols ties his hypermasculine tales – of blood feuds and family men burdened by the stress of providing – to a soulful romance.
And in an American independent film landscape dominated by filmmakers with shaky cameras and sarcastic tones, Jeff Nichols was an electric response to the status quo, with classically constructed and deadly serious films. In his then-brief but powerful career, he was perfecting an epic, visceral eye that would take him far.
Below you will find the international trailer in Mud: