398. Mud (2012)

Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland

Director: Jeff Nichols

Running Time: 130 mins

Mud is an American film about two boys who encounter a fugitive living in the woods, and after they befriend him, they realise he has been running from a dangerous past, but nonetheless, they decide to help him.

Rather than being a very good film, which it was also, this had numerous individual aspects that made it one of the most intriguing, original and fascinating concepts I’ve seen in quite a while.

Firstly, the story. The plot was indeed very interesting to follow, with many different things going on at once, however it did judder to somewhat of a halt about 80 minutes in, which I found disappointing, as there was a preceding build up of tension within the story line that suddenly disappeared. However, the final 15 minutes were surprisingly action-packed, bringing my interest back, and giving a great finish to this film.

However, it wasn’t the story that I was so impressed by. The two main things that were stunningly done were the setting and the character of Mud.

The cinematography was unbelievably well done. It may seem simple to just set this story in a remote forest, however the way in which this film used such a contrast of darker, more rustic brown colours, as well as the natural green was a fascinating and extremely clever comparison to the main character.

That main character was Mud. An absolutely fantastic performance by Matthew McConaughey, to portray a man that was such an enigma, I found myself constantly guessing what this unpredictable character was to do next, and I was nearly always wrong, as he showed both his dark side and his compassionate side, which greatly engrossed me.

Overall, I’ll give this an 8.1, because although I wasn’t amazed by the story, I was blown away by how artistically brilliant, and really in-depth this film was.