My Review: MUD (10/10)

"I just can't spend the rest of my life running away with him."

Jeff Nichols surprised everyone a few years ago with his excellent film, Take Shelter, and now he delivers another great movie with MUD. Despite being more mainstream than Take Shelter and less artistic, I enjoyed this film more because of the way the story was narrated and the characters were developed. I was blown away with this story and in my opinion it is the best film of the year and my first five star review of the year as well. The screenplay, written by Jeff Nichols, seemed to be taken straight from an unpublished Mark Twain novel. It felt like I was watching a contemporary adventure of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. MUD was fantastic, I felt like it took some of the best elements of some other films like Stand By Me and Sling Blade and improved them. Nichols knows about small southern towns and the location becomes an important character in this superb and suspenseful film. In my opinion MUD is a masterpiece and I could watch it many more times thanks to the way in which Nichols drew me into the story and got me emotionally involved with the characters. It is a very rewarding film if you remain patient and let the story slowly build into what it becomes. It is a character driven film with some powerful performances and some great visuals.

Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) are two young teenagers living on the banks of the Mississippi River in Arkansas. These good friends decide to sneak out of their houses one morning to a small island where Neckbone has spotted a boat on top of a tree. Apparently the boat ended up there after a flood that took place sometime in the past and these kids recently discovered it. Wanting to claim it as their own they climb the tree and to their surprise they discover that someone has been living there. That is when they meet Mud (Matthew McConaughey) a fugitive who has been hiding out from the police and some bounty hunters after committing a crime for the love of his life, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). Ellis, who has an idealistic view about love decides to help Mud convinced that their love story is pure. Shaped by Mud's story and love for Juniper, Ellis begins to have feelings of his own for a girl named May Pearl (Bonnie Sturdivant). He really feels the need for Mud and Juniper to be able to escape safely together after seeing how the marriage of his parents, Senior (Ray McKinnon) and Mary Lee (Sarah Paulson), begins to crumble at home.

Matthew McConaughey is superb in this film and in my opinion gives one of the best performances of his career. He has been on quite a role lately with some very interesting roles. I hope he gets nominated for his work here. As much as I enjoyed his performance, I don't know if the movie would have worked without the strong lead performance from the two young kids, especially from Sheridan who is the lead character and through whose eyes we see everything. Sheridan blew me away and I really cared for his character. There is so much depth to his character and we see the range of emotions that he goes through. He is tough but at the same time sweet, he has strong convictions about love but at the same time these convictions are being put to a test. Sheridan nails the role and delivers this film. There are also some strong secondary performances from Sam Shepard and Michael Shannon who plays a very different role here. Shannon's character, Neckbone's uncle, has the funniest scenes and brings some lightness to the story. This is by far the best film I've seen this year. I loved the story, the characters, and the suspense. The attention to southern detail that Nichols makes only improves this film and makes it more emotionally involving than it already is. 

My Review: Take Shelter (9/10)

¨You think I'm crazy? Well, listen up, there's a storm coming like nothing you've ever seen, and not a one of you is prepared for it. ¨

I finally was able to catch up with this film which I was anticipating for quite some time now but never had a chance to see it since it wasn’t released where I live. I was really excited that I finally got to see it because it was really worth the wait. It was better than I anticipated and I really loved how young director Jeff Nichols slowly built the tension in this film. For many viewers Take Shelter may feel like it is slow paced at times, but I was so into the film that I loved how the movie was unfolding before my eyes. I had no problem with the slow buildup because the movie was just so beautiful to watch and the hallucination sequences were really strong thanks to an incredible performance from Michael Shannon. This isn’t your typical thriller where all of a sudden you experience a surprise twist, but it is more like a dramatic thriller where you have the tension slowly building and growing. That is exactly what Michael Shannon`s character goes through as he becomes more and more immersed into this world of trying to figure out what is real and what is hallucination. It is not like if from one moment to the next he just automatically changed, but more like a slow progressive change which begins to unfold before the eyes of his family and community. Jeff Nichols is one to keep an eye considering he not only directed this great film, but wrote it as well. This is just his second film, his first, Shotgun Stories, also starred Shannon, and his third film, Mud, has recently been released in the Cannes film festival receiving a lot of praise.

Curtis (Michael Shannon) lives in a nice small home with his wife, Samantha (Jessica Chastain) and young daughter, Hannah (Tova Stewart), who`s deaf. Everyone in the community looks up to them, but Curtis begins to experience some strange hallucinations about a storm. These are no ordinary hallucinations, as he has trouble sleeping and wakes up sweating. The first dream had to do with a storm coming and all of a sudden his dog bites his arm. When he awakes from the nightmare the pain in his arm doesn’t go away and he begins to worry something bad is going to happen. He ends up locking his dog in the backyard and decides he should build a sort of shelter in his yard. He doesn’t tell Samantha about his problem, but keeps to himself trying to find some help by reading mental illness books and seeking advice from professional councilors. The hallucinations become stronger and stronger and his friends begin to worry about him. The dreams push Curtis further and further away from his friends and family as he keeps to himself and doesn’t try to communicate his problems. We discover he has family history after he visits his mother who suffered from schizophrenia when she was 30. Curtis fears the worst, but also decides to prepare in case his dreams become true.

These constant hallucinations and dreams have us the viewers questioning ourselves whether what Curtis is actually experiencing is a hallucination or some sort of prophesy. We do not know what to believe, but evidently something is wrong with Curtis. What Nichols does well is make the issue not only a personal one, but one that affects the entire family. That is where Jessica Chastain`s character comes in as she plays an important role in trying to keep the family together and trying to help her husband with his mental illness. She is excellent in her role and received a lot of critical acclaim as Michael Shannon did. They both won several awards for their roles in this film, although Chastain did have a bigger year with other films like The Help and The Tree of Life. I had seen Shannon in several smaller roles in the past, but this was the first time that I actually got to see him in the lead role, and he was just brilliant. I absolutely loved this film and the ambiguous ending also played out really well in my opinion. I will definitely be looking out for Nichols`s next film, Mud.

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