MOVIE: Mud

Mud: a well told coming of age movie focusing on a 14 year old named Ellis and his best friend Neckbone.  Movie takes place in Arkansas.  Ellis lives on a riverboat with his parents.  For you Arkansas people, the entire film takes place in the Arkansas Delta near the confluence of the Arkansas, White and Mississippi rivers.  The year is 2011 – only know this because of a wall calendar.  Story begins with Bone showing Ellis a boat that got lodged in a tree on an overgrown island in the Delta during a flood.  As they are rummaging through the boat, Ellis realizes that someone is living on the boat.  This is when we meet the Matthew McConaughey character, Mud.  We are never told his real name.  Mud had grown up in the area but left to follow his true love, Juniper, played by Reese Witherspoon.  As the movie unfolds, we learn that Mud and Juniper met when Mud was 10 years old.  Mud is hiding out on the island because he killed Juniper’s husband after the husband had seriously beaten Juniper.  The backstory is told as current events unfold.  For most of this 140 minute film, the focus is on the two kids and Ellis learning about becoming a man.  I usually don’t read movie reviews prior to seeing the film however, in this case, I made an exception because the preview – let alone the title – offered very little sense of what this film was about, let alone its superb quality.  The reviewer drew an analogy to Mark Twain and, yes, this film is a modern Huck Finn tale.  The movie is written and directed by Jeff Nichols.  Way too early to invoke Oscar but, at a minimum, Nichols should receive a nomination for best original movie script.  Nichols hits all the right buttons as to life learning experiences while keeping you guessing as to how he will wrap up his story.  McConaughey is  excellent.  The Juniper character strikes me as not a particularly challenging role for Witherspoon.  Sam Shepard is excellent as the man who raised Mud and who also happens to be a neighbor of Ellis, although they’d never spoken prior to Mud’s appearance.  Ray McKinnon’s character, Ellis’ father and a man trying to survive as a fisherman, is also excellent.  The family’s economic status and the emotional consequences are presented as a dying reality.  But the focus and the star is Tye Sheridan as Ellis.  He is the central character and his reactions to events is consistently believable.  Ellis is drawn to Mud and their relationship is credible; Bone’s skepticism is equally credible.  I should note that Bone (Jacob Lofland) has some of the best lines in the movie.  Even the minor roles, such as Michael Shannon as the adult raising Neckbone, are well played.  During his short time before the camera your impression of Uncle Galen will change – for the better.  Joe Don Baker also has a small but critical role.  I loved Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn as a kid (I still own copies of the Twain novels).  Ellis and Bone are similar characters in a similar environment placed in the 21^st century.  The only physical  violence is near the end of the film and it is short and stylized.  Do you get the idea I really liked this movie?   Go see Mud.