"Mud" - Review

“Mud” – Review

You know what happens when you tell a story devoid of any vestige of cell phones, computers or casual living in opulent palatial homes? You know what happens when put in its place are beautiful vistas of quiet natural unspoiled backdrops with tall trees and slow moving large bodies of water? You know what happens when the people in that story are uniformly unpretentious, look neatly un-kept and care only about the work they do to provide for their families? You know what happen when at the end of each day the only thing they care about is having that special someone to love and be loved in return? Well you will have a fabulously well crafted, well acted and beautiful looking film called “Mud”.

"Mud" on its surface is a an adventure story about two teenage boys named  Ellis and his friend Neckbone, who find a mysterious man obviously hiding out on a small river locked island on the Mississippi River named Mud (Matthew McConaughey).

“Mud” openly describes to the two boys a fantastic story about how he killed a man in Texas for the love of his life named “Juniper” (Reese Witherspoon) who is waiting for him in town and who he plans on meeting to eventually escape with just as soon as he can repair an old abandon boat he found after a recent flood.

The boys while skeptical about the honesty of his tall tale are yet still intrigued by him and agree to help him in his plans.

While the adventure is the obvious aspect to this movie, the real subplot of this film is about men. Men at the various stages of their emotional lives in the ways they try to secure and maintain love; how they process when love is the biggest truth in their lives and when love becomes the biggest lie.

Men, all men want to be loved, but their sometime impulsive nature to try and control things unintentionally get in the way. So through trial and error, reciprocated or unrequited, with ebb and flow; successes and failures, all men no matter what their ages are eventually learn that love “is a hell of thing, a hell of thing”.

"Mud' is a must see film.

4 - Stars