Ellis (Tye Sheridan), the fourteen-year-old protagonist of Mud, is a fearless breed of Arkansas country boy. He's comfortable puttering downriver in a battered aluminum fishing boat and roaring over gravel roads on a dirtbike, usually in the company of his wiseacre friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland). Ellis is no carefree Huck Finn, however. His parents (Sarah Paulson and Ray McKinnon) are on the verge of divorcing, which portends a dreary future for Ellis as an apartment-dwelling “townie”. He's also nurturing a doleful crush on a local girl three years his senior, May Pearl (Bonnie Studivant).
It's at this unbalanced moment in Ellis' life that he and Neckbone stumble upon Mud (Matthew McConaughey), a stubbly, amicable mystery man hiding on a wooded islet on the Mississippi. Mud has a drawling charm that's part pool hall hustler and part hillbilly preacher, and he quickly ensnares the boys with a tale of true love and vigilante justice. In short order, Ellis is gathering supplies for the outlaw's schemes, as well as delivering messages to Mud's girlfriend Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), who is holed up at a fleabag motel.
This is familiar terrain for writer-director and Little Rock native Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter), who’s emerged as one of America's most enthralling indie filmmakers. Nichols has an astonishing eye for the details of rural life, which serves as an authentic foundation for his razor-sharp storytelling. With Mud, the director dives confidently into the sticky backwoods waters once plumbed by underground filmmaker Charles B. Pierce (The Legend of Boggy Creek, The Town That Dreaded Sundown). While Mud is Nichols' most straightforward and conventional feature to date, there's an undeniable pleasure in seeing a bravura filmmaker and an outstanding cast deliver a gripping coming-of-age tale that oozes Southern Gothic atmosphere from every pore.
