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There's a place where the river opens up into the whole wide world. When you reach it, the horizon expands to infinity, and everything ahead looks impossibly big and uncharted. Jeff Nichols ' "Mud," a Mississippi River coming-of-age story, takes place on that threshold, down in the delta where innocence and experience, the past and the future, all run together like dirt and water.
It starts off as a boy's adventure story, in the dark of a kid's bedroom. Equipped with a walkie-talkie and a flashlight, 14-year-old Ellis ( Tye Sheridan ) sneaks out the window of a ramshackle house built on the water. On his way past the kitchen, he stops briefly to listen in on some curt and cryptic talk between his parents before heading out into the darkness, where he and his friend Neckbone ( Jacob Lofland ) navigate the winding waterways in a small outboard-powered skiff.
When they arrive at that natural gateway, we first see it reflected in their awestruck faces. Then we see the mighty river they're about to enter. Downstream there's a small island where they've spotted a tiny blue and white wooden cabin cruiser that floodwaters have lifted up into a tree. (You may remember the image from another river journey: Werner Herzog ’s " Aguirre, the Wrath of God .") To them, it's a ready-made treehouse, but what they discover (along with a stash of Penthouse magazines, some cans of Van Camp's Beanee Weenee, a package of sliced bread and a few other provisions) is that somebody's already living there.
His name is Mud, and he embodies many connotations of that word: coarse, mucky, disreputable, opaque, unstable, common as dirt. Mud ( Matthew McConaughey ) beguiles the boys with colorfully embroidered origin-stories about his snake tattoo, his lucky shirt, the crosses on the heels of his seven-league boots and a long-ago bite from an Edenic serpent that almost killed him, right here on this very stretch of river. Most of these personal legends can be traced back to the one unshakable verity of his life: Juniper ( Reese Witherspoon ), his first and only true love since childhood.
The hints of violence in Mud's murky past, and the pistol tucked in the back of his jeans, make him a little scary, and thus all the more charismatic to the boys. He's the dangerous dog that won't let anybody else approach, but flatters the kids with his acceptance and trust. Given that Ellis' parents are on the verge of splitting and Neckbone is being raised by a feckless, scatterbrained uncle, it doesn't hurt that Mud, an adult male, gives them attention and advice that makes them feel needed and important.
For Ellis and Neck, Mud is also a romantic figure. They sympathize with his devotion to Juniper because they're just now taking their own early, uncertain steps in the sticky terrain of love and courtship. Mud persuades the boys to help him — first with food and supplies, later with the herculean task of getting the boat out of the branches and into the water so he and Juniper can float off to an outlaw fairy-tale happily ever-after.
The great American literary critic Leslie Fiedler said: "To be an American (unlike being English or French or whatever) is precisely to imagine a destiny rather than to inherit one; since we have always been, insofar as we are Americans at all, inhabitants of myth rather than history." That could be the inscription on this film. Writer-director Nichols, who also made " Shotgun Stories " (2007) and " Take Shelter " (2012), works in that American tradition. He has a rare ability to root his archetypal Southern fables in rich observational detail. They remain tangibly specific but take on the larger resonances of folklore.
"Mud" runs deep with undercurrents from American movies and literature: " Tom Sawyer ," "Huckleberry Finn," " The Night of the Hunter ," " To Kill a Mockingbird ," "Moby Dick," " Cool Hand Luke ," the films of Nichols' fellow Austin-resident Terrence Malick (" Badlands ," " Days of Heaven ," " The Tree of Life "). But the picture never comes unmoored from reality or drifts off into lazy abstraction and cliché. Nichols' eye for particulars, his feel for the characters and landscapes (and waterscapes), is so vivid you feel you could get bit by a mosquito or a water moccasin if you're not careful.
Adam Stone's luminous widescreen photography and David Wingo's acoustic swamp music also have a lot to do with that, and so does the casting. McConaughey is on a roll, and this part, which Nichols wrote for him, is the strongest and most subtle lead performance of his career. (Could this be what becomes of Wooderson after he stops messing around with high school girls?) Even better, if that's possible, is young Sheridan ( Brad Pitt and Jessica Chastain's youngest son in " The Tree of Life "), whose first kiss with a slightly older girl (two grades?) at a beach bonfire is so flawlessly rendered it already feels like it came from a classic movie.
American icon Sam Shepard , another Malick veteran, appears as a houseboat hermit sporting Billy Bob Thornton 's haircut from " Sling Blade ." Michael Shannon , the magnetic star of Nichols' previous pictures, effortlessly steals scenes as Neck's slacker-diver uncle. (A detail: When we meet Neck he's wearing a faded hand-me-down Fugazi T-shirt that suggests he must live with an older brother or male relative. The moment we see the inside of Uncle Galen's trailer, we have a pretty good idea of where it came from.)
And while Ellis looks like a cross between Atticus Finch's kids Scout and Jem (Mary Badham and Phillip Alford) in Robert Mulligan's " To Kill a Mockingbird ," Neckbone is the perfect fusion of River Phoenix and Jerry O'Connell in "Stand by Me." The resonances are all around.
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Rated PG-13 for some violence, sexual references, language, thematic elements and smoking.
130 minutes
Matthew McConaughey as Mud
Tye Sheridan as Ellis
Jacob Lofland as Neckbone
Michael Shannon as Galen
Sam Shepard as Tom Blankenship
Reese Witherspoon as Juniper
- Jeff Nichols
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Common sense media reviewers.
Poignant coming-of-age tale has some edgy content.
A Lot or a Little?
What you will—and won't—find in this movie.
This is a story about redemption and love and the
Not a ton of clear role models -- the boys make qu
Several fist fights, two between teenage boys and
A 14-year-old boy flirts with an older girl and go
The word "s--t" is used in nearly every
Cans of Beanie Weenie are shown a couple of times.
A few adult characters drink quite a bit -- Ellis&
Parents need to know that Mud is a nuanced coming-of-age drama about two 14-year-old boys who befriend a mysterious man (Matthew McConaughey) with a dangerous past. Expect plenty of tense sequences, fist-fighting violence, one big shoot-out that leaves several men dead, and a fair bit of strong language (the…
Positive Messages
This is a story about redemption and love and the universal heartache that comes with growing up and being rejected and not knowing what's right and what's wrong. Ellis and Neckbone are constantly given advice about what it means to be a man, to love a woman, and to protect those you love, but they have to discover what's true for themselves.
Positive Role Models
Not a ton of clear role models -- the boys make questionable decisions, Mud admits he killed a man, Juniper doesn't keep her promise, and Galen is an admitted womanizer. But when it comes down to it, Mud is willing to put himself at risk for the boys, and vice versa. The characters' friendships are unconditional, as is Ellis' parents love for him.
Violence & Scariness
Several fist fights, two between teenage boys and one in which an adult pops a teen boy in the eye. A man nearly chokes a woman and cuts her with a knife. A boy is bitten by a snake; his leg swells horribly, and he slips into unconsciousness before being taken to the hospital. A big gun fight toward the end of the movie leaves several people dead or injured.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Violence & Scariness in your kid's entertainment guide.
Sex, Romance & Nudity
A 14-year-old boy flirts with an older girl and goes on one date with her. They kiss twice. Neckbone asks Ellis whether he touched a girl's "t-tties" and excitedly flips through a stack of Penthouse magazines (no graphic images shown) saying innuendo-filled exclamations like "You've got to see these." Neckbone tells Ellis that "Help Me, Rhonda" is his uncle's "'doing it' song," and then a woman in a cleavage-baring tank top runs out and tells Neckbone that he should treat a girl like a princess, not like his no-good uncle. A woman flirts with and embraces a man who nuzzles on her neck. The uncle tells the boys that when a woman breaks your heart, you have to go find another and "get your tip wet again." A 17-year-old girl is shown laughing and flirting with a boy in his car.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.
The word "s--t" is used in nearly every scene, especially by one of the boys. Other strong language includes "bitch," "bulls--t," "t-tties," "ass," "hard on," and more.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.
Products & Purchases
Cans of Beanie Weenie are shown a couple of times. Many Ford trucks. A Geo Metro and Pontiac Fiero are shown. Neckbone wears a Fugazi T-shirt. People shop at a Piggy Wiggly.
Drinking, Drugs & Smoking
A few adult characters drink quite a bit -- Ellis' father, Mud, Juniper -- usually alone, but also at a bar. An adult smokes cigarettes.
Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.
Parents Need to Know
Parents need to know that Mud is a nuanced coming-of-age drama about two 14-year-old boys who befriend a mysterious man ( Matthew McConaughey ) with a dangerous past. Expect plenty of tense sequences, fist-fighting violence, one big shoot-out that leaves several men dead, and a fair bit of strong language (the boys say "s--t" a lot, as well as the occasional "bitch," "ass," and more). As for sexuality, one of the boys is smitten with an older girl, and they share a couple of kisses; his friend asks about her "t-tties" and is excited to find a stash of old Penthouse magazines (no graphic images shown). An uncle is known for "doing it" to the song "Help Me, Rhonda" and gives the boys terrible advice. Despite the film's language and references to adolescent and adult sexuality, Mud is the kind of thought-provoking film that teens and parents could watch and discuss together. To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .
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- Kids say (6)
Based on 3 parent reviews
Gritty and heart-warming
Not for under 16, what's the story.
Fourteen-year-old Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his best friend, Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), have made an awesome discovery on a remote island off of the Arkansas Delta where they live: a beautiful boat nestled perfectly in a large tree. But when they climb the tree and scope out the boat, they discover that someone has already claimed it -- a mysterious unnamed man ( Matthew McConaughey ) who asks them to bring him food. At first they're hesitant, but Ellis convinces Neckbone that it's the right thing to do. During clandestine subsequent visits, the boys discover that the man's name is Mud and that he killed a man to save the love of his life, Juniper ( Reese Witherspoon ), whom he's expecting to join him so they can run off together on the trapped boat. Back at home, Ellis deals with a crush on a senior girl and parents on the brink of divorce, while Neckbone, an orphan, lives with a charming womanizer of an uncle ( Michael Shannon ). When bounty hunters and the family of Mud's victim descend on the town, the boys face the consequences of aiding an escaped murderer.
Is It Any Good?
MUD is the sort of movie that stays with you long after the credits roll. Writer-director Jeff Nichols -- himself an Arkansas native -- has established himself as an actor's director with this independent drama that's so impressive you'll find yourself quoting the best parts to other people. Clearly Nichols has a soft spot for his home state, because he depicts it -- the poverty, the Piggly Wiggly, the rough-knuckled residents -- with tender, loving care. Even the perilous snakes swimming in the river are given both a symbolic and literal importance in the story. And what a simultaneously unique and age-old story it is: boys learning about what it means to be a man from a man who's both wise and dangerous.
The joy of watching Mud is threefold: the lush cinematography, the fabulous script, and the poignant portrayals from not only McConaughey, who delivers a career-best performance, but also the boys and the supporting cast. Sheridan's Ellis, the heart of the story, is a true Romantic who falls under Mud's spell because he yearns to believe that men will do anything to protect their love -- unlike his father (Ray McKinnon), who has apparently "given up" on his mother ( Sarah Paulson ). Lofland's Neckbone, on the other hand, is the movie's comic relief and voice of reason. The always amazing Sam Shepard has a pivotal role as a retired Marine sharpshooter who knew Mud as a boy, and Witherspoon pulls off a much tougher, sadder character than she usually plays. A touching story with terrific acting, Mud is everything that's good about independent films.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the similarities between Mud and other stories about kids who befriend enigmatic older characters, like Huckleberry Finn or To Kill a Mockingbird . How does the movie contain elements of both a Southern Gothic and a coming-of-age story?
In what ways does Mud 's setting influence the boys' personalities? How are they different than the people they consider "townies"? What does Ellis' father mean about enjoying the river while he can?
There's a lot of talk about love and relationships. What relationship models do Ellis and Neckbone have in their lives? Are any of them positive? Why is Ellis so heartbroken about Juniper and Mud's relationship? What are his views on love?
Do you think Mud is a man worth helping, or not? On the one hand, he's a criminal and a known liar, but on the other, his actions seemed justifiable by his love. The filmmaker, like the boys, doesn't judge Mud too harshly -- but what about you?
Movie Details
- In theaters : April 26, 2013
- On DVD or streaming : August 6, 2013
- Cast : Matthew McConaughey , Reese Witherspoon , Sam Shepard , Tye Sheridan
- Director : Jeff Nichols
- Inclusion Information : Female actors
- Studio : Lionsgate
- Genre : Drama
- Topics : Friendship
- Run time : 130 minutes
- MPAA rating : PG-13
- MPAA explanation : some violence, sexual references, language, thematic elements and smoking
- Last updated : May 11, 2024
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Life on the Mississippi
By David Denby
In the marvellous new adventure film, “Mud,” the fourteen-year-old boy, Ellis (Tye Sheridan), who lives on an Arkansas houseboat with his warring parents, and his friend, Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), loosely raised in a trailer by his scapegrace uncle, escape at dawn, and pilot their boat to an island in the Mississippi. In the middle of the island, a boat tossed by a hurricane lodges high in a tree. It turns out that a fugitive is living in this lofty vessel: an eccentric, no-longer-young man named Mud, played by a very lean Matthew McConaughey with scraggly long blond hair and a chipped tooth.
McConaughey talks in his patented rhythmic Texas drawl. Unlike Sheridan and Lofland, who seem entirely intuitive in their approach to performing, McConaughey is a little actorish, but his showmanship works for Mud, who is an inveterate con artist and fantasist. Since childhood, Mud has been in love with a white-trash goddess, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon)—parting from her, getting back together, beating up her other lovers. Recently, he killed a man who treated Juniper badly, and the dead man’s family, forming a murderous posse, is looking for him. The boys, stirred, try to protect Mud from the police and help him in his romantic quest. They don’t quite know why they do all this, since it’s clear that Mud makes up stuff and lives by dreams and portents and magic, but he’s the center of their secret life, their screw-loose mentor and romantic outlaw all in one.
Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland move in tandem, like fleet and wary animals. They have a sure, unemphatic way of connecting, with just a few words and gestures, or a silent glance; they’re never not connected to each other. Sheridan’s Ellis, with dark hair, is the more perceptive and sensitive of the two, but Lofland’s Neckbone, a shrimpy blond boy, is country smart—tough, stubborn, a good negotiator—and he looks after his friend as if he were a brother. Watching these two on the loose, plotting and foraging on Mud’s behalf, we can’t help thinking of Huck and Jim, or Huck and Tom Sawyer. The writer-director Jeff Nichols (“Take Shelter”) even made the two actors study “Huckleberry Finn” on the set, and Nichols has brought to the film Twain’s understanding of a boy’s best qualities—a love of adventure, an instinctive loyalty, and a generous chivalry, too. But Nichols has added something of his own. Ellis is too tough a kid to beg for anything, but he’s at a crisis point in his life—his parents are splitting up, an older girl in town gives him a small kiss then dumps him—and, in the most literal way, he needs to know something: What kind of love will last? That’s Nichols’s theme, not Mark Twain’s.
Decades after the work of William Faulkner, Flannery O’Connor, and Eudora Welty, the American South remains a storehouse of good stories—tales in particular about people living off the grid, in ramshackle houses, in perilous trades on the verge of disappearing. In the past few years, in the movies, we’ve had Debra Granik’s drama about the meth-amphetamine racket in the Ozarks, “ Winter’s Bone ,” starring Jennifer Lawrence; Benh Zeitlin’s watery metaphysical masterpiece, “ Beasts of the Southern Wild ,” with Quvenzhané Wallis; and now “Mud”—all independently made, low-budget rural films in which a powerful fable has emerged from the gross and poetic details of daily existence.
In 2011, Jeff Nichols directed the ominous “ Take Shelter ” with its roiling skies, its atmosphere of apprehension. “Mud” has no visions, but it has the same intimacy with textures and moods—dark, rotting waterside houses; the river itself; the spiders, snakes, and terrain of the Arkansas Delta. The movie is formally plotted, with many symmetries and variations; children without parents is the dominant structural device. But it also has its rough and scraggly look, and actors with the worn faces of hard-working country people—especially Sam Shepard as a mysterious old man living on the other side of the river from Ellis, and Sarah Paulson as Ellis’s mother. Nichols has developed a talent for intimacy and for continuous tension—he could be developing into one of the great movie storytellers.
For Ellis’s hard-pressed father (Ray McKinnon), the only truth of life is that you have to work hard. He dins that into Ellis again and again, but Ellis has his own kind of work, in adventure and secrets. The further he goes into his intrigue with Mud and his mysterious girlfriend, the more contradictory adult life seems to him. The movie celebrates a great American kid, and much of it plays with a depth and psychological acuteness almost never found in our movies anymore.
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Mud Movie Review
After hearing that his obituary had been published in a New York newspaper, Mark Twain famously quipped, ”The report of my death was an exaggeration.” Of course, the author did eventually pass. But the coming-of-age, life-on-the-river spirit of his greatest novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , lives on in the Southern gothic thriller Mud . Directed by Jeff Nichols ( Take Shelter ), the film slowly unspools the story of two Arkansas teenagers: the sensitive, soft-spoken Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his loyal, smart-aleck pal Neckbone (Jacob Lofland). The two stumble across a grizzled fugitive named Mud (Matthew McConaughey) hiding out in an abandoned boat on a small island on the Mississippi River. Mud needs their help fixing the boat so he can flee with his bad-news girlfriend, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). And Ellis, whose parents are splitting up, is won over by this stranger’s sense of romantic heroism. He needs something to believe in — why not love?
Unlike a lot of filmmakers who try to bottle the down-home details of the rural South, Nichols has a sense of place that feels authentic. He never condescends. There’s something old-fashioned about Mud , but if you allow yourself to settle into its leisurely pace, it will reward you. If he were alive today, Mark Twain would approve. B+
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Movies | ‘mud’ review: matthew mcconaughey evokes newman and mcqueen.
Somehow, when no one was looking, McConaughey used the last few years of his increasingly interesting and varied career wisely and well: He’s now an actor of serious presence and searching honesty.
The moment writer-director Jeff Nichols decided to locate the story along the Mississippi, he knew he’d be courting comparisons with Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” since “Mud” is primarily concerned with 14-year-old Ellis and his pal, Neckbone, and their brushes with danger of all sorts (along with grace notes of tenderness). These boys are portrayed, respectively and wonderfully, by Tye Sheridan, who was in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” and Jacob Lofland, who is new to the movies. “Mud” owes a lot to them. And yes, to Mark Twain. But this is no slavish homage to a great American yarn. It’s its own story, imperfect, overfull, but brimming with vital and human feeling.
Earlier, Nichols made “Shotgun Stories” and “Take Shelter,” astute portraits of troubled men and their family ties. “Mud” continues the theme, though it’s young Ellis who must make sense of his world. The family home, like those in Elia Kazan’s “Wild River,” is threatened by demolition; it’s smack on the banks of an unpredictable waterway. Ellis’ parents, played with fierce honesty by Ray McKinnon and Sarah Paulson, are splitting up. Their son feels lost, rudderless; he doesn’t know what to do with his feelings, let alone his crush on an older teenage girl. By the time Ellis and Neckbone encounter the man called Mud, the boys are ready for a surrogate father figure, however sketchy.
Nichols packs in a great deal of plot and incident, gracefully. Mud, who has ambiguous ties to a shadowy ex-CIA assassin (Sam Shepard) across the river from Ellis, is wanted for the murder of the abusive lout who nearly killed his sweetheart, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). Enlisting the boys to steal engine parts for his getaway boat, Mud dreams of rescuing Juniper from her tormentors. The bad men only want her to get to Mud. Ellis and Neckbone become pawns in this quixotic plan of escape. The river and its banks are full of promise and snakes.
There’s one aspect of “Mud” where Nichols writes himself into a corner: The climactic gunfire and morally untroubling slaughter feels wrong for this movie (and maybe for any movie). But in an expansive story of fathers and sons and a search for belonging, Nichols takes time and care to make everyone on screen worth watching. Michael Shannon, who appeared in Nichols’ previous features, returns here in the droll supporting role of Neckbone’s uncle, who oyster dives for a living. The entire adult cast is splendid. Sheridan and Lofland are that, plus something more: Their friendship, as they act it, or live it, for the cameras (the movie was shot in supple widescreen 35 mm), carries epic strength and resilience. Now and then Nichols can’t resist a dialogue exchange with a poetic flourish at the expense of forward momentum. “Mud” doesn’t need such flourishes. It has so much else.
‘Mud’ — 4 stars MPAA rating: PG-13 (violence, sexual references, strong language, thematic elements, smoking) Running time: 2:10 Opens: Friday
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Mud – review
In the early 1930s, during a lengthy safari in Tanganyika Territory, Ernest Hemingway broke off a discussion of antelope hunting to provide a German expatriate with a disquisition on American literature from colonial times to the present. During this little lecture, included in his Green Hills of Africa , Hemingway made one of his most famous statements. "All American literature," he claims, "comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn . If you read it you must stop where the Nigger Jim is stolen from the boys. That is the real end. The rest is just cheating. But it's the best book we have. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."
Jeff Nichols's exhilarating third movie, Mud , concerns two 14-year-old boys growing up in a small town beside the Mississippi in the director's native south central state of Arkansas, and it's impossible while watching it not to think about Huckleberry Finn and Hemingway's claim for its essential position in the experience of growing up close to the American landscape. It also brings to mind Hemingway's own detailed, tactile descriptions of fishing, sailing, hunting and living close to nature in the wild. There's another great novel about growing up, understanding and misunderstanding the world that Mud inevitably evokes. That's Great Expectations and Pip's relationship with fugitive convict Magwitch.
Nichols's Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer are Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) who set off on an adventure down river to find an old boat, surrealistically stranded high in a tree on a deserted island. They come across a handsome, charismatic man called Mud (Matthew McConaughey), and he too lays claim to the boat. When it transpires he's on the run for what he claims to be a justified homicide down in Texas, the boys enter into a pact to provide him with food and help him restore the craft as a means of escape. Ellis acts out of an innate sense of decency, sympathy and a need for friendship. Neckbone's motives are initially cynical and mercenary, though he gradually warms to the outsider.
In a deft piece of storytelling Nichols first links the tasks the boys undertake to their troubled family lives. Then he brings in Tom (Sam Shepard), the taciturn loner and former marine living on a houseboat across the river who has a key relationship to Mud. And finally their fates are dramatically involved with the strangers in town attracted by Mud: his mysterious girlfriend Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) and the posse of bounty hunters led by the patriarchal King (Joe Don Baker).
Through Ellis's wondering, romantic eyes we see the mighty river, which represents adventure, unknown dangers and the promise of a journey to a world elsewhere. He longs for love, friendship and security, but his parents' marriage is breaking up and their houseboat, from which his father conducts his business as hunter and fisherman, is threatened with confiscation. He envies the orphaned Neckbone's lovably wild uncle (Michael Shannon) who dives for clams wearing a homemade outfit that looks like Ned Kelly's improvised armour.
Nichols gives the scenes on the island with Mud a timeless feeling. It's a mythical place where old tales can be told, friendships formed, trust established and memories created. This should not be seen as languor, or dismissed as longueur. The small town, by contrast, is a dangerous place full of suspicion and betrayal, where the young need to be wary and appearances are deceptive. Ellis is constantly misled and misunderstood, especially in his efforts on behalf of Juniper, the capricious, vulnerable girl whom he aims to unite with the lovelorn Mud and launch towards the wild blue yonder.
Nothing, of course, turns out as it should or as we quite expect, and there is a sudden, spectacularly handled outburst of violence worthy of Sam Peckinpah, whose first important movie, Ride the High Country , dealt with similar themes of coming of age, moral growth, ethical tutelage and a climactic confrontation between men of honour and representatives of brute force. Nichols has in fact been quoted as saying his film is "kind of like if Sam Peckinpah had directed a short story by Mark Twain".
Mud is a movie of striking performances and memorable images and of people who seem to belong in rather than being imposed upon their environment. After a rather fallow period of shallow movies, McConaughey has recently been doing fine work again, and he brings a raw, desperate masculinity to Mud , while Shepard invests the part of ex-soldier Tom with the authority and sense of understated probity at which he excels.
Both of the boys, Sheridan (who was in Terrence Malick's Tree of Life ) and Lofland (in his first movie role), manage the subtle development their characters undergo. It's also a pleasure to see Michael Shannon (so impressive as the father obsessed with the imminent end of the world in Nichols's last movie, Take Shelter ) in the brief role of Neckbone's uncle, and to have Joe Don Baker bring his distinctive brand of bulky menace to another small but far from minor part. They stick in our minds the way they would in that of a teenage boy. Nichols is a writer-director whose next film I eagerly await.
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T he third feature by the Arkansas-born director Jeff Nichols is called Mud and it’s his least muddy: Its storytelling is fluid, its emotion transparent. It has an easy pace that carries you along, like a raft on the Mississippi, where much of the film is set. In its first scene, 14-year-old Ellis (Tye Sheridan) sneaks out of his Arkansas houseboat before dawnpast the lighted kitchen, where his mom is bewailing his dad’s unresponsivenessand meets up with his ruffian pal, Neckbone (Jacob Lofland). They’re headed to a river island on which Neckbone saw a boat in a tree, evidently thrown up by a storm. Neckbone wants to claim ownership. But it turns out someone’s living thereand watching every move the boys make. He’s grizzled, emaciated, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth and a gun tucked into his ever-tightening belt. He’s played by Matthew McConaughey. His name is Mud. And his name will really be mud if he’s found by the cops and certain other lethal persons.
Most of Mud (I’d say 98 percent) is viewed from the vantage of Ellis, a boy with a lot on his pubescent mind. His mom (Sarah Paulson) is about to give his bewildered dad (Ray McKinnon) the heave-ho and move with her son from their houseboat to an apartment in town. The fear of loss (boat = childhood) is offset by the stirrings in his heart for May Pearl (Bonnie Sturdivant), a high-school girl maybe half a foot taller. Ellis throws himself on a senior he sees manhandling May Pearl, who wasn’t in as much distress as your average storybook damsel but is obviously flattered to have been rescued. Then he discovers Mud’s crime was on account of an endangered woman, too. And not just any woman. Her name is Juniper and she’s like a dream you don’t wanna wake up from, says Mud, all but sculpting the air with his long, thin fingers. Later, in town, Ellis sees a woman (Reese Witherspoon) he knows must be Juniper going into the Piggly Wiggly wearing dark glasses, cutoffs, and fuck-me pumps. Ellis knows that he and Mud are the same: They both believe in risking everything for love. And he knows he must help Mud be with Juniperat any cost.
For Nichols, Mud is a change of paceand point and tone. It’s friendlier, shapelier, and more resolved than his Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter, with none of those pesky dissonances and loose (bleeding) ends. In Shotgun, two sets of brothers by the same father (who’d abandoned the first family, then allegedly found God with the second) trade ugly words at the site of the old man’s grave, and Nichols channels all his (and, I’d argue, humanity’s) moral confusion into the blood feud that ensues. His second film, Take Shelter, is more feverish, his protagonist (Michael Shannon, also the star of Shotgun ) a husband and father eaten alive by the fear of losing his wife and child to whatever dark forces (he has visions) are about to descend on the Earth. We wait for Nichols to put us back on terra firma at the end of Take Shelter, but he doesn’t. He lets the nightmare winas it always will.
But the moral universe of Mud is settled. The parallels between young Ellis and young-at-heart Mud are tidy, and when the film introduces Mud’s ex-military father figure Blankenship (Sam Shepard) and the old man tells Mud he’ll have to dig himself out of his own mess this time, you kinda-sorta know Blankenship will come back into the picture the way similar patriarchs do in the bonehead action movies that Mud suddenly looks like. (A posse of bad guys comes to town led by Joe Don Baker, whose character Mud likens to Old Scratch.)
It’s hard to believe Nichols thinks he can get away with all this and harder still to believe he does. It’s the quality of the attention that he bringshis focusthat makes his work so engrossing. It helps that young Sheridan (he was in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life ) has such a keen, wary, self-contained presence. He’s internaluntil he isn’t and interrupts, throwing himself at the latest big bad wolf. At his side is young Lofland’s Neckbone, a hilarious foil, the same size and shape as Ellis but with one eye always on the main chance. All the actors are all there. I never thought I’d get such a kick out of watching Shepard be iconic againbut he now can hold his pose while letting all kinds of impudent subtext bubble up.
Does anyone still doubt McConaughey’s acting smarts? In Mud, he drawls and barks and gives his weird timing free rein, with the result that every line that emerges from his twisted, sunken face lands somewhere, sometime unexpected. Witherspoon’s role is smaller and less demanding, but what a pleasure it is to see her (like McConaughey) liberated from the minstrel show that is the studio rom-comwhere actors make fortunes by caricaturing everything about themselves that made them stars. — David Edelstein
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“Do you love her?”
Wistful and hoping for a yes, the rough-hewn Arkansas boy who asks that question can’t quite hold the gaze of the stranger, but his voice is insistent.
The question comes early in “Mud” and will haunt the 14-year-old and the movie until the final frame.
The answer — to what loving means, to how urgent it feels the first time, to how easily it can slip away, like the Mississippi River that runs through this tale — is wily and willful.
MOVIE REVIEWS: Latest reviews from The Times
The movie itself, filled with miscreants, mysteries, a scandalous hero named Mud and a couple of boys as headstrong as Huck Finn, is one of the most creatively rich and emotionally rewarding movies to come along this year.
The boy named Ellis, portrayed by young Tye Sheridan, who first turned up in Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life,” will ask about love many times over the course of the film. He will press his father, Senior (Ray McKinnon), his mother, Mary Lee (Sarah Paulson), a bad-luck beauty named Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), his first girlfriend May Pearl (Bonnie Sturdivant), even the local recluse Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard). But Ellis will keep coming back to that stranger — Mud (Matthew McConaughey) — who seems to know more than most about life and loving.
Mud is a romantic on the run that Ellis and his best friend, Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), stumble across when they go to investigate a boat lodged high in a tree by some angry, earlier storm. It’s on a spit of sand that passes for an island in the middle of the Mississippi, not too far from one of the houseboat shanties that hug the river’s edge. Passed down from one generation to the next, it’s where Ellis has grown up and tells us everything we need to know about how precarious things are for him.
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The boys’ investigation of the boat leads to the discovery of the man. Ellis is curious, Neckbone is wary. Bit by bit their prodding pulls the story out of Mud.
His murder of a Texas man in a quarrel over Juniper is what has him hiding. That death has dogged him like the bounty hunters paid for by the man’s father (Joe Don Baker) and the lawmen who are drawing closer. He’s hungry. He needs to get a letter to Juniper. Will they help?
Much turns on the clandestine adventure that follows, the boys’ excitement at being a part of it doing much to buoy the film. Besides, if Ellis believes anything, it is that Mud loves Juniper and Ellis is clearly moved by love.
With matted hair, a cracked front tooth, sun-browned skin and blues eyes sparking mischief, McConaughey beautifully articulates with his honeyed drawl the very essence of a grizzled, determined romantic. It is the best work of the actor’s career, though virtually everyone in the film turns in sensitively drawn performances, particularly the boys.
If you don’t know the name Jeff Nichols — if the writer-director’s singular voice, fierce and fearful in 2011’s “Take Shelter,” somehow eluded your notice — make note of it now. “Mud” should securely anchor this rising tide as a distinctive talent to remember.
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Nichols is made in America, a storyteller in the tradition of Mark Twain, uncanny in the way he understands human nature, inventive in spinning that into a movie. There is an ease with which Nichols pokes around in people’s lives, unearthing small truths in authentic ways. In “Mud,” it feels as if he’s caught a small slice of backcountry soul like a firefly in a jar.
For such a spare film, “Mud” is dense with details. Ellis’ father, Senior, peddles his daily catch door to door, his marriage is disintegrating, and he doesn’t understand why. It’s all sketched out in a few scenes, sometimes just shadows in the next room and tense exchanges that Ellis overhears.
Neckbone helps out his uncle Galen (a mellow Michael Shannon rather than his apocalyptical worrier of “Take Shelter”). Galen spends a good part of his days under water, scouring the river channels for oysters. He wears a wet suit — all the time — and when he’s working he adds what looks to be the top half of some old deep-sea diving gear he picked up at a Jules Verne scrap sale.
But like everything else about “Mud,” the diving gear, the broken-down houseboats, the weathered skiff the boys use to navigate the Mississippi, seem specific to the moment. Nichols takes care not to repeat himself, though he does hold his friends close — Shannon’s been in all three of his films, and director of photography Adam Stone and others have helped in creating a recognizable style for each one.
MORE: Latest film reviews from The Times
Ellis and Neckbone are soon spending their days scavenging parts to help Mud ready the boat for the great escape and ferrying notes to Juniper, a long-legged mess in cutoffs. Witherspoon gives her character a lazy languor that is seductive in the Mississippi heat. Whether nursing a beer or tossing that long blond mane, it’s easy to imagine men falling for her.
Ellis is trying his hand at romance too, with a younger version of Juniper in May Pearl. His introduction is a swift upper cut to the chin of a rival who’s bothering her. All the while, the bounty hunters are gathering. State troopers are closing roads. Tom Blankenship, who’s got a long history and limited patience with Mud, gets involved. And Juniper remains as much of an enigma as love itself.
As Nichols stirs things up, everything that Ellis has been aching to understand will get tested. Each of the characters we’ve met along the way will be tried and found worthy, or not. Lives are in jeopardy, and there is a snake pit you will never forget. Though nothing is guaranteed, in Nichols’ sure hands you know it will be an exceptionally fine ending when it finally comes along.
MPAA rating: PG-13 for some violence, sexual reference, language, thematic elements and smoking
Running time: 2 hours, 10 minutes
Playing: In general release
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Edelstein: A Tree-Dwelling Matthew McConaughey Steals the Show in Mud
T he third feature by the Arkansas-born director Jeff Nichols is called Mud and it’s his least muddy: Its storytelling is fluid, its emotion transparent. It has an easy pace that carries you along, like a raft on the Mississippi, where much of the film is set. In its first scene, 14-year-old Ellis (Tye Sheridan) sneaks out of his Arkansas houseboat before dawn — past the lighted kitchen, where his mom is bewailing his dad’s unresponsiveness — and meets up with his ruffian pal, Neckbone (Jacob Lofland). They’re headed to a river island on which Neckbone saw a boat in a tree, evidently thrown up by a storm. Neckbone wants to claim ownership. But it turns out someone’s living there—and watching every move the boys make. He’s grizzled, emaciated, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth and a gun tucked into his ever-tightening belt. He’s played by Matthew McConaughey. His name is Mud. And his name will really be mud if he’s found by the cops and certain other lethal persons.
Most of Mud (I’d say 98 percent) is viewed from the vantage of Ellis, a boy with a lot on his pubescent mind. His mom (Sarah Paulson) is about to give his bewildered dad (Ray McKinnon) the heave-ho and move with her son from their houseboat to an apartment in town. The fear of loss (boat = childhood) is offset by the stirrings in his heart for May Pearl (Bonnie Sturdivant), a high-school girl maybe half a foot taller. Ellis throws himself on a senior he sees manhandling May Pearl, who wasn’t in as much distress as your average storybook damsel but is obviously flattered to have been “rescued.” Then he discovers Mud’s crime was on account of an endangered woman, too. And not just any woman. Her name is Juniper and she’s “like a dream you don’t wanna wake up from,” says Mud, all but sculpting the air with his long, thin fingers. Later, in town, Ellis sees a woman (Reese Witherspoon) he knows must be Juniper going into the Piggly Wiggly wearing dark glasses, cutoffs, and fuck-me pumps. Ellis knows that he and Mud are the same: They both believe in risking everything for love. And he knows he must help Mud be with Juniper — at any cost.
For Nichols, Mud is a change of pace — and point and tone. It’s friendlier, shapelier, and more resolved than his Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter, with none of those pesky dissonances and loose (bleeding) ends. In Shotgun, two sets of brothers by the same father (who’d abandoned the first family, then allegedly found God with the second) trade ugly words at the site of the old man’s grave, and Nichols channels all his (and, I’d argue, humanity’s) moral confusion into the blood feud that ensues. His second film, Take Shelter, is more feverish, his protagonist (Michael Shannon, also the star of Shotgun ) a husband and father eaten alive by the fear of losing his wife and child to whatever dark forces (he has visions) are about to descend on the Earth. We wait for Nichols to put us back on terra firma at the end of Take Shelter, but he doesn’t. He lets the nightmare win — as it always will.
But the moral universe of Mud is settled. The parallels between young Ellis and young-at-heart Mud are tidy, and when the film introduces Mud’s ex-military father figure Blankenship (Sam Shepard) and the old man tells Mud he’ll have to dig himself out of his own mess this time, you kinda-sorta know Blankenship will come back into the picture the way similar patriarchs do in the bonehead action movies that Mud suddenly looks like. (A posse of bad guys comes to town led by Joe Don Baker, whose character Mud likens to “Old Scratch.”)
It’s hard to believe Nichols thinks he can get away with all this and harder still to believe he does. It’s the quality of the attention that he brings — his focus — that makes his work so engrossing. It helps that young Sheridan (he was in Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life ) has such a keen, wary, self-contained presence. He’s internal — until he isn’t and interrupts, throwing himself at the latest big bad wolf. At his side is young Lofland’s Neckbone, a hilarious foil, the same size and shape as Ellis but with one eye always on the main chance. All the actors are all there. I never thought I’d get such a kick out of watching Shepard be “iconic” again — but he now can hold his pose while letting all kinds of impudent subtext bubble up.
Does anyone still doubt McConaughey’s acting smarts? In Mud, he drawls and barks and gives his weird timing free rein, with the result that every line that emerges from his twisted, sunken face lands somewhere, sometime unexpected. Witherspoon’s role is smaller and less demanding, but what a pleasure it is to see her (like McConaughey) liberated from the minstrel show that is the studio rom-com — where actors make fortunes by caricaturing everything about themselves that made them stars.
This review originally appeared in t he April 29 issue of New York magazine.
- movie review
- matthew mcconaughey
- jeff nichols
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Summary Two teenage boys encounter a fugitive and form a pact to help him evade the bounty hunters on his trail and to reunite him with his true love.
Directed By : Jeff Nichols
Written By : Jeff Nichols
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Mud, reviewed: Matthew McConaughey cleans up in a film best enjoyed slowly
There’s a romantic theme running through the picture, of men and woman (and girls and boys) who can’t quite figure each other out, and who seem destined to be drawn together only to ricochet apart
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At first blush, Neckbone and Ellis sounds like one of those private-investigative duos, the kind that populated American TV networks in the 1980s. (See Cagney & Lacey, Hardcastle and McCormick, Jake and the Fatman , etc.)
Mud, reviewed: Matthew McConaughey cleans up in a film best enjoyed slowly Back to video
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In fact, the pint-sized protagonists in the latest film from Jeff Nichols ( Take Shelter ) are just a couple of hardscrabble kids from rural, riverside Arkansas. Though by the end of the film, it’s clear they have what it takes to navigate the world of crime. “Keep your door locked,” Neckbone advises one of the adult characters: “We’ll be in touch.”
They’re at that tipping-point age when the adult world is still a huge and mysterious place, but the emotions that drive their elders are starting to become familiar to them as well. Ellis (Tye Sheridan) is a little ahead of his pal in this regard. The watchful kid has noticed (and been noticed by) high-schooler May Pearl (Bonnie Sturdivant). But he’s also dealing with the fact that his parents may be on the road to divorce.
The story opens with their discovery of a boat stuck in a tree on a deserted island in the river. It’s a magical find, brought there by the “last flood” they reckon, and they claim it before realizing someone has already taken up residence. The squatter turns out to be the title character, a drifter played by Matthew McConaughey, who among such titles as The Lincoln Lawyer, Bernie, Killer Joe, The Paperboy and Magic Mike has had a fine couple of years.
It’s clear that Mud is meant to take place in the present day. Yet the story has such an old-fashioned feel, with its references to Robinson Crusoe and Huckleberry Finn – not to mention its lack of cellphones, computers or the Internet – that we’re also meant to understand that this is a fabled present, one in which a child might find both real adventure and real danger while playing in the woods.
Mud, with his disheveled appearance and thick-as-hominy accent, seems to have sprouted from the local clay. Smart but uneducated, he talks of seven-league boots and his lucky shirt, impregnated with enough magic to ward off evil and bad luck. Mud also carries a pistol, but he swears by the shirt. (It’s ironic, given that McConaughey is famous for doffing his shirt at the drop of a hat.)
[np_storybar title=”VIDEO: Watch the trailer for Mud, starring Matthew McConaughey” link=”#1″] [/np_storybar]
Mud floats an offer – if the kids will give him food, he’ll relinquish the boat just as soon as he’s done with it. Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) is prepared to walk away, but something in this dreamer’s demeanour resonates with Ellis. He returns with food, and eventually teases out more of Mud’s story. It turns out he’s on the run from the law, and hoping to reunite with his true love, a pretty blond named Juniper (Reese Witherspoon).
There’s a romantic theme running through the picture, of men and woman (and girls and boys) who can’t quite figure each other out, and who seem destined to be drawn together only to ricochet apart. Neckbone lends Ellis a battered hardcover, The Confident Confidante: Communicating with the Opposite Sex . Neckbone’s uncle (Michael Shannon in a fine but small role) notices it and approves, though it’s clear from his own relationship he hasn’t taken it to heart.
Nichols gives the story a languorous pace, but the beautiful scenery and naturalistic characters make this a film best enjoyed slowly. As the boys spend more time talking to Mud, it becomes clear that he and Juniper are a complicated pair. And when they track her down at a nearby motel, they learn that the police aren’t the only ones looking for Mud.
The film features a fast and explosive climax, and a resolution that feels a little too tidy, as though the director didn’t trust us to walk away without all our questions answered. But that seems to be the point where Ellis is concerned. Every adult he meets has something to say about love. It’s up to him to decide whom to believe.
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NYT Critic's Pick. Directed by Jeff Nichols. Drama. PG-13. 2h 10m. By A.O. Scott. April 25, 2013. The central image in "Mud," Jeff Nichols's deft and absorbing third feature, is of a boat ...
Jeff Nichols ' "Mud," a Mississippi River coming-of-age story, takes place on that threshold, down in the delta where innocence and experience, the past and the future, all run together like dirt and water. It starts off as a boy's adventure story, in the dark of a kid's bedroom. Equipped with a walkie-talkie and a flashlight, 14-year-old Ellis ...
Review: 'Mudbound' Is a Racial Epic Tuned to Black Lives, and White Guilt. A scene from "Mudbound," Dee Rees's film adaptation of Hillary Jordan's novel. Steve Dietl/Netflix ...
Rated: 4.5/5 May 1, 2023 Full Review Edward Porter Sunday Times (UK) The influence of Mark Twain lingers in the warm air of this present-day drama. Sep 26, 2022 Full Review Read all reviews
Our review: Parents say ( 3 ): Kids say ( 6 ): MUD is the sort of movie that stays with you long after the credits roll. Writer-director Jeff Nichols -- himself an Arkansas native -- has established himself as an actor's director with this independent drama that's so impressive you'll find yourself quoting the best parts to other people.
By David Denby. May 1, 2013. In the marvellous new adventure film, "Mud," the fourteen-year-old boy, Ellis (Tye Sheridan), who lives on an Arkansas houseboat with his warring parents, and his ...
GRADE: A-. Mud is rated PG-13 for some violence, sexual references, language, thematic elements and smoking. What is Mud? It's an incredible indie drama starring Matthew McConaughey and a young batch of talented actors. It's also one of the best films of the year.
Mud Movie Review. By. Chris Nashawaty. ... After hearing that his obituary had been published in a New York newspaper, Mark Twain famously quipped, "The report of my death was an exaggeration ...
In "Mud," an evocative highlight of the American movie year so far, Matthew McConaughey slips easily into the role of a haunted, lovelorn killer on the lam, hiding out on an island in t…
The rest is just cheating. But it's the best book we have. All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since." Jeff Nichols's exhilarating third ...
Rating: PG-13 — for some violence, sexual references, language, thematic elements and smoking Director: Jeff Nichols Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland ...
Advertisement. For such a spare film, "Mud" is dense with details. Ellis' father, Senior, peddles his daily catch door to door, his marriage is disintegrating, and he doesn't understand ...
This review originally appeared in the April 29 issue of New York magazine. ... Movie Review: Mud. ... for the Palme d'Or at Cannes Neon has won the Palme d'Or five times in a row, with Sean ...
Mud review. At Sundance 2013, Matt review Jeff Nichols' Mud starring Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Reese Witherspoon, and Sam Shepard.
New York Daily News Apr 25, 2013 ... See All 35 Critic Reviews 10. Eilidh2 Sep 30, 2014 Mud was my favorite movie last year. A lovely fable about the friendship between a drifter on the run from the police and two teenage boys, growing up in dysfunctional families, on the Arkansas River. ... Because submitted reviews have to be 150 characters ...
Mud's got some guns, too — and knives and stories of snake bites, as well as lots of ways to survive in the wild. He seems bigger than life, until life catches up with him.
Ultimately, I'm torn on Mud. Its story was engaging, and the internal struggle of Ellis was cleverly paired with an external struggle to save a man who he feels champions his romantic ideals.
Share this Story : Mud, reviewed: Matthew McConaughey cleans up in a film best enjoyed slowly. Copy Link; Email; X; Reddit; Pinterest; LinkedIn; ... New York Times Crossword ...
A film that mixes the intimate with the epic, thrilling action with slow-burning drama, Mud is a searing 2012 slice of Southern US-set cinema which rivals the brilliant Beasts of the Southern Wild ...
Why 'Mud' Is the Best Southern Film in Years. By Godfrey Cheshire. June 10, 2013 10:38 am. Share. With grosses approaching $20 million and still going strong, the breakout box-office success of ...
RIDE Official Trailer | Starring C. Thomas Howell, Annabeth Gish, Jake Allyn, Forrie J. Smith. Watch on. John is a rancher and former rodeo star in Texas worn down by years of hard labor, and ...
With each successive project growing in scale and ambition, MUD finds Jeff Nichols at the forefront of American cinema and confirms Timothy E. RAW's long held suspicions of his being the country's most significant filmmaker since Paul Thomas Anderson. He reviews the film and talks to Nichols at Sundance UK.
For the New York Times; Reviews of Kid Stuff; Salt in Wound. ... Browse: Home / movie reviews / Movie Review: Mud. Movie Review: Mud. By Jack Silbert on May 2, 2013. 3.5 stars out of 5. For us long-time Matthew McConaughey fans, there is an unspoken but teased-at subplot in Mud: Will he or won't he take his shirt off? The shirt gets a lot of ...
Still, he comes badly unstuck in this overlong film's muddled, pandering last act, forcing closure with a surfeit of endings. There's an argument to be made that there's a calculated degree ...
Adapted from Elizabeth Fremantle's 2012 novel, "Queen's Gambit," "Firebrand" seeks to highlight Henry's sixth and last wife, Katherine Parr (Alicia Vikander), the only spouse to ...
The movie is the only project the star has filmed since his violent brush with Chris Rock at the 2022 Oscars. Maybe you will find something noteworthy in a story whose dramatic stakes involve ...
LOL Rated 4/5 Stars • Rated 4 out of 5 stars 06/13/24 Full Review Trinette Amazing stunts and times well with the music. Great cast and chemistry! ... The Fall Guy, New Anne Hathaway Movie, Star ...
"Hitler and the Nazis" toggles back and forth on the timeline, alternating between a chronological study of Hitler's rise to power and a number of pivotal events in World War II to the 1945 ...
Richard Linklater's Netflix rom-com thriller about a mild-mannered professor who falls in love with playing a faux hit man stars Glen Powell and Adria Arjona. Review: The film is a "romantic ...
'Robot Dreams' an animated fable fit for kids, but adults will cherish it most Wistful, wordless film set in the New York of the '80s expresses something profound without wasting a word.