By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 3.5 cats
Director: Jeff Nichols
Starring: Jacob Lofland | Matthew McConaughey | Michael Shannon | Reese Witherspoon | Sam Shepard | Sarah Paulson | Tye Sheridan
Country: united_states
Year: 2021
Running time: 130
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1935179/combined
Chris says: “As a follow-up to TAKE SHELTER, a film with shifting ambiguities and an awesome performance from Michael Shannon, Jeff Nichol’s MUD can’t help but almost feel a bit of a letdown. The titular figure, an on-the-run hobo of sorts hiding out on an island in the Mississippi River in Arkansas allows Matthew McConaughey to continue his mid-career renaissance—he’s perfectly fine, but there isn’t much more to him than meets the eye. The real meat of the story comes from the two 14-year-old boys who discover and befriend him, in particular Ellis (Tye Sheridan), whose family drama and teenage angst give the film its momentum. Nichols is at a place where acclaim for his previous films allows him to assemble a fine cast, including Sarah Paulson, Sam Shepard and Reese Witherspoon; the atypical-for-a-film locale is also vital to complementing and fleshing out the primary narrative and providing it with a sense of wonder and mystery. It’s unfortunate that the final act devolves into generic
action-sequence mode, but MUD is still interesting as a transitional work, vacillating between personal, regional storytelling and trying to place that within more recognizable genre conventions—and occasionally succeeding at doing so. 3.5 cats”