Ryan McNeil
I’ve always loved rivers as metaphors. They move, yet they are still…they are constants, yet they are changing. They can seem so soothing, yet they are considerably dangerous. In Jeff Nichols’ latest film MUD, the metaphor they point to is the trash that a river can sweep into a person’s life. It’s the idea that you might be going about life as normal, and something undesirable is brought right to you where you stand.
In this metaphor, the question then becomes what you do when you come across something undesirable. To hear MUD tell it, the answer to that question comes down to how old you are…and how trusting a soul you have.
The story begins with Ellis (Tye Sheridan). Ellis lives with his parents in a houseboat on the banks of a river in Arkansas. While his parents argue for the umpteenth night in a row, Ellis ducks away and rallies up with his friend Neck (Jacob Lofland). The boys take their small outboard up-river to an uninhabited island. It’s there that they become fascinated with a boat stuck up in a tree, seemingly dropped there by the hand of God. While at first they have visions about making the boat their own private hide-a-way, those hopes are soon dashed by footprints left nearby.
Someone else is there.
That someone is a man who tells them to call him Mud (Matthew McConaughey). Mud tells the boys that he is hiding on this island from certain people, and likewise waiting on this island for someone in particular. While Mud has a steely demeanour – and a pistol close at hand – the boys don’t see him as a threat.
Mud eventually tells the boys that he is hoping to reconnect with his lost-love Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), who is waiting for him at a motel in town. He also tells them that he is counting on help from Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard), a hermit they both know of but have seldom spoken to.
Something about Mud’s predicament speaks to Neck and Ellis, and they decide to help him. For Ellis, it comes at a time where he is starting to assert himself. Not only is he asserting himself to his parents, who are rocketing towards divorce…but also to a girl named Maypearl who he has a crush on, despite her being four years older.
Ellis and Neck are at an age where the crucial choices they make will begin to define who they grow up to be, and their decision to help Mud is the first of those choices.
MUD is a story of trust. The film a look at how easily one can become a trusting person, and how shitty it can be to have one’s trust betrayed.
When Neck and Ellis come upon Mud, he seems strange – and maybe even dangerous – but something about the way he speaks to them gives them reason to trust him. They at least see him as trustworthy enough to help out. If they’ve heard the fable of the scorpion and the frog, then they don’t think that this scorpion will succumb to its nature. It may seem naive, but we have to remember that for Ellis, he has met Mud at a time when he can’t seem to trust any other adult to have his best interest in mind. So they help him.
The thing is, since Mud isn’t completely on the level, the boys – and Ellis in particular – get burned and feel foolish for trusting him. For Ellis, it probably feels a lot like the rejection he got at the hands of Maypearl. He has opened himself up to someone willingly, and been figuratively knocked-down in front of a lot of onlookers. He didn’t deserve such rejection (so few of us do), but it was the price he paid for believing in someone and opening himself up.
Mud goes through something similar with Juniper. To hear him tell it, they are star cross’d lovers – deeply devoted to one-another and ready to run hard and fast away from any oncoming trouble. To him, the sun rises and sets on Juniper’s slight shoulders. He literally trusts her with his life. The problem is, that as much as Juniper might care about him, she’s not trustworthy enough to bet on the way Mud does. What’s interesting is watching the way Mud reacts. He doesn’t lash out the same way Ellis does, but he’s quite clearly affected. Perhaps he has become quite accustomed to betrayal, and steeled himself to the emotions it brings on.
Ellis and Mud both have to deal with betrayal, and it leaves one to wonder how one gets from lashing out in anger to smugly staring back. How long until one just stops sticking their neck out altogether, and walls ones self off like Blankenship on the riverbank? That’s the difficult choice we all face as we go through life. Trust too easily, and one becomes a sucker; don’t trust at all and one becomes jaded. Somewhere in the middle is the sweet spot…isolated like that island Mud is hiding on.
The film Jeff Nichols has created is a beautiful one. It fills the screen with genuine people – the sort of people one feels like they could plausibly meet in the small Arkansas town the film is set in. The film has a grimy feel to it, but also a hardworking one. It’s not content to fill the screen with pretty pictures and a down-home soundtrack (though we are given both). Instead, MUD dares to tell a textured tale with complicated characters. It’s a story so paradoxical, that most of its characters give us reasons to trust them…and likewise, reasons not to trust them.
That’s a great review, man. I love those first two paragraphs. Spot on, and I feel like you even managed to capture why Bruce Springsteen always returns to the metaphorical river well.
The ONLY thing that troubled with me with this film was that late, over-dramatic development that I won’t reveal but I suspect you know. Like, that was the single time Nichols stopped trusting his own ability to tell a story. Other than that, his storytelling is as good as the game.
I *think* I know the scene in the late-going that you’re talking about, and I agree. Something tells me that if Nichols decided to keep things lower boil, I’d be calling this my first four-star film of the year. Then again, I might also get over my hang-ups on rewatch.
Glad you dug the piece – that intro wasn’t easy.
Ryan, how do you feel about some of the reviews pointing toward the film being misogynistic? I can’t agree knowing why the female characters do what they do.
Anyone in your audience have that reaction?
Because MUD Is more of an old-school country song than a modern tale. A little one-sided genderness is totally fine in this context.
But, ultimately, that one-sided genderness is just naivete on behalf of Mud and Ellis and stupidity on Senior.
Nice review Ryan. Was really looking forward to seeing this but my ridiculous local cinema decided to only have one showing, at 10am on a weekday. Bah. Will definitely be renting this though.