Mud

Jeff Nichols’ Mud is a very traditional boys’ story. The young boy who encounters a mysterious dangerous adult recalls figures as diverse as Magwitch and Long John Silver. The friendship between the two 14-year-olds who freely explore the Arkansas swamp evoke Huck and Tom. Typically, the self-reliant boys can seem more mature than the rascally men. 

In fact the film parallels several forms of male relationbship. Young Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) are two very distinct characters, with an obviously close bond. Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard) was a surrogate father to Mud (Matthew McConaughey) but their close friendship is resurrected once Mud finally gives up on Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), his unfaithful passion. 

Domestically, Neckbone is raised by his laddish uncle Galen (Michael Shannon). Ellis grows closer to his taciturn father Senior (Ray McKinnon) when his mother Mary Lee (Sarah Paulson) decides to leave the ramshackle waterboat she grew up in and move up to town. The dark side of male bonding is the vigilante gang that King (Joe Don Baker) hires to kill Mud, to avenge the murder of his son. He loses his other son in the process. In contrast, Mud and Tom sail off into the unlimited sea at the end.

The film’s central symbol is the old boat stranded high in a tree. It begins as an image of something out of its element, something left high and dry, stranded. That’s how Mud feels from Juniper’s betrayals (a juniper is a tree and he’s stuck in the mud below, until he sails off with Blankenship) and how Ellis feels from his capricious treatment by his first “girlfriend,” the slightly older May Pearl (Bonnie Sturdivant), whose name evokes both freshness and the treasures for which Galen dives to the deep oyster beds. This film is not very casual with its metaphors. 

The film has a captivating sense of place, especially in the young boys’ carefree and confident exploration their neighborhood waters. They’re in their element, so they’re able to help find what Mud needs when he’s stranded on the island. (His name suggests a meld of their water and his island of earth.) 

As Ellis in particular moves out of his boy’s world into the man’s -- i.e., meets girls and becomes interested in love, enough to serve Mud’s and Juniper’s  -- he loses that confidence and control (like the treed boat). Like Mud, his first jealousy prompts him to punch his rivals. He may be tempted to give up on love. He witnesses Galen’s frustrated girlfriend’s revolt, his father’s insensitivity to Mary Lee, and is disillusioned by Juniper’s infidelity. Fortunately  Mud teaches him -- by words if not example -- not to lose faith in women or in love. The film closes on Ellis confidently smiling at the girl in the new neighborhood. The river rat has moved into the townies’ territory but Ellis’s recent experience has prepared him to succeed. His new t-shirt matches the colours and lines of his tenement bricks. He’s moved into a new world but he’s no longer a fish out of water, or a boat in a tree. Like that boat, a good man suffer his heartbreak but will plunge back into the swim of things.