“Mud”
Directed by Jeff Nichols
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Michael Shannon
Drama
130 Mins
R

From the first time we meet the titular character in Mud, we know that there is something strangely magical about him – a forty-something hobo (but don’t call him a bum) living out of a tree-ridden boat in the midst of a deserted island. Cut through the many layers of caked-up dirt and ignore the .45 hanging out of his pants and you see a fully grown man-child living out his own never–never land fantasy – a postmodern Peter Pan who’s been trapped in a cyclical time warp, chasing down the ever-fleeting girl of his dreams.

Mud is a coming-of-age story for adults and children alike that weaves a meaningful fable about the disillusioned and discarded coming to terms with the harsh reality of their evaporating worlds.Matthew McConaughey disappears into this snaggle-toothed ruffian Mud, grounding this dreamlike down-by-the-bayou yarn with a believable but odd backbone. McConaughey’s performance is delicate and unique, dark and nuanced offering award-caliber work.

Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland play Ellis and Neckbone, a pair of scrappy teenagers living in the backcountry of Arkansas. When the duo comes across a mysterious boat jammed in a crook of a tree in the woods, they discover that an wanderer named Mud has taken up shop there. As Ellis grows closer to Mud, he learns that Mud is a fugitive on the lamb who intends to sweep up his lost love and whisk her away to a “better life.” Although we can see that Mud’s hapless lifestyle is hardly from the pages of a fantasy book, Ellis, having discovered that his parents are splitting up, decides to fight for “true love” and aids Mud’s quest to reunite with his splintered love and make the tree-boat seaworthy again.

Since so much of the film is anchored on Sheridan and Lofland’s performances, director Jeff Nichols is lucky to have found such a pair of authentic young actors. While Lofland’s oddly named Neckbone plays nicely as the comedic relief (rifling off cusses and indecencies well over his age), Sheridan is the true heart of the story. His wide-eyed curiosity and irreverent attitude towards his elders makes him a captivating combination of esoteric traits.

On one side of the spectrum, Ellis is an uncommonly brave young man, willing to fight people far older and bigger than him if he deems it right, and yet there is a palpable and tragic sense of naivety to him. He’s a small fish in a big ocean and this little guppy hasn’t really encountered the adult world, even though he likes to think that cruising around on a dirt bike and playing rebel makes him a bona fide BA. Like walking in on a kid learning that Santa Claus ain’t real, we witness Ellis as he encounters disillusionment and heart break to poignant and intimate results.

The detailed sense of place in this story is wonderfully articulated and takes on a murky character of its own. The dirty, brown, ugly river running through the story is a Giving Tree of sorts. It provides with no thought for itself and everyone who lives on the river seems to be living off of it in one way or another. Ellis’s father catches and sells from his riverside shanty, Neckbone’s uncle dives for mussels and pearls and even Mud seems to have emerged mysteriously from the riverbed like an Uruk Hai from a birthing pit.

Unfolding on this mucky river is a growing sense of wonder and mystery that seems to mimic the outlook of a child. Even in his world of recycled possessions and mud-stained belongings, everything seems so full of intrigue and promise. But things are not always as they seem and nothing is black and white in Nichol’s film. Every one has their own indiscretions and share of mistakes but that doesn’t necessarily make them bad, it just…makes them. This is the case with Reese Witherspoon’s character Juniper – a kind but lecherous soul. Her helpless love with Mud is at once pure and manipulative and in the end our impressions of any one of these characters is limited by our brief encounters with them.

Neckbone’s uncle Galen, played in a bit-part by Michael Shannon, offers an anecdote that seems to encapsulate the magic of the film. Looking up at his ceiling fan winding overhead, he muses to his nephew that it’s the best ceiling fan that he’s ever had, finer than all the other ceiling fans he’s ever owned, and yet he found it on the bottom of the river. Who or why someone threw it out is a mystery to him but as the adage goes “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure”. To extend this metaphor to Mud (both the character and the film,) even people who have been thrown away, mistreated or discarded can be worth saving and may just be the finest things of all. They just may need some re-wiring.

Themes of innocence lost and re-invigoration of character are beautifully woven into the subtext and come across as potent and intoxicating, allowing Mud to be something to dwell on rather than watch once and dismiss. It’s a surprisingly tender film that, like its characters, wears its heart on its sleeve. As a postmodern tale of virtue gone slumming and a story of the veracity of the human spirit, Mud is a tremendously heart-warming and gritty modern day fairy tale.