Matthew McConaughey continues his metamorphosis into serious character actor (after Killer Joe and The Paperboy) in a leading role in this, the third feature from the director of Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter.
It centres on the friendship of two teenage boys, Ellis and Neckbone, and their discovery of a fugitive on an uninhabited island in the Mississippi where Ellis and his family make their home.
The fugitive goes by the name of Mud, (played rather well by McConaughey), and is back in the neighbourhood to meet his childhood sweetheart, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). The boys, particularly Ellis, seize upon this romance and enthusiastically work towards a successful tryst for the couple but reckon without the band of heavies and the law, who are on Mud’s trail.
The narrative is conveyed through Ellis’ perception and becomes multi-layered as his understanding of the events he witnesses are tempered by his years and lack of experience of the adult world.
This is a sophisticated, ambitious and superior film with a great script, which eschews the obvious for subtlety and nuance and coaxes magnetic performances out of its lead characters, particularly the two teenage boys. The domestic travails of both boys is a backdrop to narratives about fatherhood and kinship, as in Shotgun Stories, and Nichols is a director who is fearless when faced with a broad canvas especially one which is set in this location, steeped in literary and cultural myths.
The subject matter, location and thematic resonances range from Great Expectations to Whistle Down the Wind, Night of the Hunter and Stand By Me but it also fits into the broad traditions of US independent cinema, epitomised in recent years by the work of David Gordon Green amongst others.