2 hrs & 10 min, color, 2013
In order to learn what caring
and devoted love is many folks have to learn first of all what that kind of
love is not. What is counterfeit, and
what is bone fide real? Some do not
learn the difference until far into adult life, after heartbreak and rejection
and injury have had a go at them. Some
never learn, for lack of mentors and role models and established family
precedents. What a remarkable thing it
would be if a fourteen-year-old child were presented with the opportunity to
learn something about the difference!
And stranger yet it would be if a half insane, love deprived
drifter/loser, someone barely surviving and maybe at the end of his rope,
inadvertently opened the door wide for him to learn. Such a thing might seem beyond the realm of
possibility, but such is the upshot of “Mud,” an original screenplay written
and directed by Jeff Nichols, wherein it takes on strong credibility.
The title is not a reference
to wet soil; it is the name of the adult character around whom events spiral,
the desperate drifter, portrayed with considerable imagination and strength by
Matthew McConaughey. With long straggly
hair, unshaven countenance, sun bleached skin, grimy hands and nothing more to
his name than his pants, a thin long sleeved shirt and a Colt 45 pistol, he
scrounges for himself on an island in the middle of the Mississippi River. The boy’s name is Ellis (played by Tye
Sheridan), a malcontented teenager and only child, in a quiet state of upset
over the impending demise of his parents’ (Sarah Paulson and Ray McKinnon)
marriage, which presages the destruction not only of his home but of the
houseboat on an Arkansas tributary where the three member family has long
lived. Ellis meets Mud when he and his
friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), a close riverboat neighbor of the same age,
decide to explore the island and make a hideaway in an abandoned motorboat
resting in the branches of a tree, not knowing that Mud is already occupying
it.
The boys get involved in the
man’s predicament and start to bring him things he seems to need, hoping in
return to take possession of the boat once the man is gone from the
island. But they soon discover that Mud
is something other than a crazy sad vagrant.
He is a fugitive with a history of retributive violence, a sharp and
resourceful creature, with bounty hunters on his trail, and he is bound up
emotionally with a floozy skirt named Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) hanging out
in town, whom he has known since childhood and with whom he has had an off
again/on again relationship. As Mud sees
it, she is there waiting to make contact with him and prepared to run away with
him once she does. But things are not
that simple for anybody, as it turns out.
Mud is a man possessed a bit
by superstition, haunted by his past and something of an adult child who
reckons that changing your location is enough to make a new start, never having
caught on to changing within. When you
move to a new locality you take all your baggage and trouble with you. One must shed the baggage, and even up to the
last time we see him, he remains oblivious to this fact. And he knows something about how to ensnare
people by pretended affection and trust, giving them a false sense of safety in
trusting him. It does soon become clear,
however, that the boys are having a new kind of influence on him, touching a
vein of caring so unexpected that he is able to break the mold and save Ellis’s
life at a desperate moment. In the
process of doing so he even exposes himself to the likelihood of discovery by
his nemeses. But of course circumstances
head off the possibility of any permanent bond.
The men who are after Mud are super deadly and malicious and we get to
see just how much they are – in one ugly scene that foreshadows what lies in
store for the quarry when he is caught.
Mud may be the most
fascinating character in the story, but Ellis is unquestionably the main
one. Everything is seen from his point
of view and he is in just about every scene.
He is hooked on the prospect of bringing these two “lovers” together,
proving to himself that the love that has faded between his parents can be a
lasting thing after all, that the tottering world he knows at home is not the
one beyond his door. As one might
expect, he comes in for some heartbreaking disillusionment and gets in up to
his neck.
Everything seems poised to
end in tragedy, but this southern-based drama does not take place in the world
of Carson McCullers or William Faulkner or Tennessee Williams. It bears more resemblance to that of Mark
Twain’s “Huckleberry Finn.” Human
decency and compassion force their way through the stress and the pain and the
musty surroundings to give themselves the final words. The heart insists upon showing up even amidst
the near death incidents and the violent climactic showdown that is visited
upon Ellis’s little domestic haven.
Ellis’s parents may be poor and penny pinching, but they are not trashy,
nor are they especially lacking in affection.
There are in fact some touching scenes between each of them and the
kid. And Ellis is really an obedient and
respectful child, shaken off course only by sudden domestic unrest and
uncertainty and his stark encounter with a seemingly wild man on an
island.
The picture is not a perfect
work. Too little character development
is given to Neckbone and the uncle who for undisclosed reasons is raising him
alone. To my satisfaction he never comes
completely to life. He seems to be more
of a device in the plotting, not a vivid personality or presence. Also the incident in which Ellis’s
infatuation over an older teenage girl ends in a cruel rejection gives me a
little trouble. It is very well directed
and staged, but I question whether or not it belongs in this particular
movie. It feels to me like a distraction
from the dynamics of the story and bears no overt relation to them. And there are some loose ends that are never
cleared up after the dust settles, which of course I cannot denote without
giving too much away.
But Nichols is an independent
Writer/Director to be watched. The
scenes between Ellis and Mud are quite powerful and the ones in which we become
familiar with Juniper are most electrifying.
The supporting cast is sturdy, especially Sam Shepherd, a fine actor and
writer who I have not seen perform in many years. He plays a recluse who has a history of his
own with Mud, flushed out of seclusion by Mud’s crisis. And the ambience is terrific – not surprising
considering that the film is very close to home for Nichols, having grown up in
that very world as a river scamp himself.
Google him and read what he has to say about his experience of making
“Mud.” I suspect the youth will find
the movie quite engaging; it is a good story for anyone between the ages of
thirteen and seventeen.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn
about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.
I welcome feedback. Direct it to bobracine@verizon.net
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