This following clip goes some way to encompassing my feelings towards Matthew McConnaughey over the last decade or so:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=74MZNhBC5No

First I’d like to say that this impression of McConaughey is spot on. Kudos Seth Green.

Secondly although hilarious, I don’t really share the vitrol hatred that baby Stewie and many people I know seem to have for this man. The film’s he have made are pretty singular in their type and therefore pretty easy to avoid if you so should wish. Apart from the naked bongo incident of many moons ago, he really doesn’t have enough of a presence in the press for anyone to feel like their being saturated with his presence. I think the last four films, have been the most I have seen of McConaughey in years.

For me, McConaughey is a harmless presence. The films he makes are usually not my type ranging from indifference  (Contact, EdTV) to boredom (Sahara, Fool’s Gold) to laughable terribleness (Failure to Launch, Tiptoes). I will admit that although much of his filmography over the last decade or so is quite horrific, I’ve rarely, if ever, felt that the blame fell on the actor himself. He’s always seemed competent in really terrible films. If it were the actor to blame, then I wouldn’t have seen so many of them and been pleasantly suprised by a couple (How to Lose a Girl in 10 Days, a guilty pleasure of mine) and more recently Tropic Thunder. I honestly don’t describe to the concensus that he’s is the worst.

I’ve never subscribed to this because I still remember a time when McConaughey was good…and so were his films. In the 90s, he was a big draw, with serious performances in A Time to Kill, Newton Boys, Amistad and Contact. None are exceptional films, the first being the best in my opinion, however, they displayed the hopefulness of a promising talent.

But that wasn’t what happened. Some people describe McConaughey’s career trajectory as a derailment or    decade-long detour, but I see what was a simple option for McConaughey that you or I would find hard to turn down, the potential to make a lot of money doing very little. What people seem to forget about actors is that actors act for completely different reasons, just like real people like you and me. Not everyone sees acting as a vocation, some see it as a job, some see it as destiny. I think for a while McConugahey saw it as the former. McConaughey enjoyed the opportunity to have a job that paid lots with minimal effort while concentrating on creating a successful home life. Isn’t that what life is all about? So then who can blame him?

(I feel the only thing we can really fault is the seemingly impenetrable clause in his contract that means he has to take his shirt off for a percentage of time on screen. I don’t know what the studio did for the Lincoln Lawyer but that is literally the only film in recent memory where I haven’t to see a bare chest or his ‘guns’. I don’t like to complain but there is such a thing as too much.)

In this way his career trajectory makes much more sense. In the early years, he wanted to prove himself, like you do in say an internship or entry level job, jumping at any opportunity for that promotion. Once he got there, he got comfortable, coasting in his roles and concentrating on life outside work, like what someone does in their thirties. Maybe now McConaughey is having a sort of positive mid-life crisis career-wise anyway. The last couple of years have seemed to demonstrated a new fire within. The man seems to have regained his love of film and wants to once again prove or test himself and his latest contribution (Kiler Joe, Bernie, The Paper Boy, The Lincoln Lawyer) , Mud, has become part of a cannon in what some have coined “The Re-McConaissance”.

What do I make of his peformance and the film itself? Please read on to find out.

The Review 

A la Stand By Me, this coming-of-age tale follows two young friends who, while exploring a small island, discover a fugitive called Mud (Matthew McConaughey). The trio warily enter a pact to help Mud evade bounty hunters and reunite with his love Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) in exchange for a boat he is hiding in, that happens to be stuck in a tree.

Before seeing this film, Mud had been on my radar for some time. Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter had been a favourite of mine from 2011 so I was excited to see his next venture. I will admit I was slightly unsettled by the comparisons to the aforementioned ultimate coming-of-age classic Stand By Me and while Mud does have its problems, and doesn’t really compare. It’s still a good film and an impressive contribution from Nichols. So much so that I have Shotgun Stories on my Lovefilm radar.

The first difference to Stand By Me, is that there is a lot more going on. I mean this in the sense that Stand By Me, very much focussed on the four central boys in their adventures and is disciplined in it’s task. Mud is much more expansive, focussing just as much on Mud and his actions on wider society as well as on one of the young boys, Ellis (played by a very good Tye Sheridan). The film’s central interest is in the relationship developed between Mud and Ellis, Ellis being drawn to the warm father figure potential he sees in Mud while yearning this with his actual father who cuts a loving but remote, struggling figure.

While the film is plugged  as being a coming-of-age tale of two boys, the story really is about Ellis. Neckbone (played by Jacob Lofland) is really a peripheral character. The focus on Ellis I actually quite appreciated as I was feel that the film was able to give justice to Ellis’s development and sense of place in the world. It successfully follows how through meeting Mud he sheds his initial, some might say naive, notions of love to realise that love is anything but simple. And this is what this film is, not just a coming-of-age story but also an exploration of the complications of love and the realisations of this are seen through the eyes of a young boy. Notions of love and its endurance or death is not only explored through McConaughey’s Mud and the boys quest to reunite him with his love, but also in the relationships of Ellis’ parents, Ellis himself, and momentarily a mysterious neighbour, Tom (Sam Shepard).

This is also a boys film in the sense that it also explores the complexities of father and son relationships and it’s effects on men throughout their lives. The film looks at what happens when there isn’t a father figure present and the kinds of people that become surrogates. This is explored  with the aforementioned Ellis and Mud and Ellis and his own father. In addition we look at the relationship between Mud and Ellis’ neighbour Tom, Neckbone and his uncle Galen (a criminally underused Michael Shannon) and the bounty hunters family network.

Performances

All in all, I have no complaints about the performances, they range from adequate to very good. At the end of the spectrum, McConaughey gives a performance that is very good. I felt that he was at his most charming, so comparing this to what his character is supposed to have done, I felt this gave his character and performances depth. He was playing somebody who had committed a lot of savage acts and done many a corruptible deed all for a steadfast, committed belief in love.

Although there were some issues I had with the way he character was written. It was obvious Nichols was gunning for Mud to be a character that is duplicitous, both disarmingly charming but willing to do bad to get what he wants and he has other characters alluding to Mud’s pathological lies but the film doesn’t actually do anything to prove his lies. Instead of creating an air of mystery about this character, I just felt confused about his reputation. I put that down to poor writing to be honest. McConaughey’s performance saves his character.

Tye Sheridan who I don’t think I have seen in anything else was also very good, appearing assured and adept in his portrayal of the central role of Ellis, the awkward but good hearted teenager. Jacob Lofland’s Neckbone, as I mentioned before was secondary to that of Ellis and he does an adequate job although I didn’t always quite catch what he was saying whether it was his accent or mumbling.

Everyone else were good if not perfunctory. I felt that some parts were underwritten so that it became a little obvious that some actors had had very little to work with. Although acceptable in her performance, I felt Sarah Paulson was a little miscast. She just didn’t look the part. She seemed to fresh faced which seemed a little out of place in her surroundings, life, and comparative gaunt appearance of her husband. He’s a man who looked like he lived hard and reminded me much of John Hawkes in looks and performance ( a very big compliment)

I haven’t mentioned the other billed name in this film – Reese Witherspoon- and that’s because I want to talk about her performance as one of my problems with the film.

Criticisms

I will admit that outside of Election and maybe ( a very thin maybe) Cruel Intentions, I am not a huge fan of Reese Witherspoon. I try not to judge actors based on their personal lives or tabloid news appearances because unless they do something truly criminal or awful, what they do in their lives isn’t my business. And Witherspoon’s recent brush with the law doesn’t alter my feelings about her. You’re life has to be legendary that it’s bordering on mythical (think old Hollywood like Ava Gardner, Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brandos etc) otherwise I couldn’t care less.  My business is to judge what I see on screen.

With Reese Witherspoon’s performance in Mud I didn’t think I was seeing much. The allure that Whitherspoon’s Juniper supposedly has, that the film goes to great lengths to press, was completely lost on me. I also don’t know if the combination of Reese’s seeming disinterest in the film or the fact that her character is really underwritten despite being the driving force of one of the major plot points, left me questioning the need for her to be in the film at all. In my honest opinion, I think it would have made this storyline much more powerful if she wasn’t there, she’s just alluded to. An invisible omnipresence that makes Mud do the things he does, because God knows, her appearance certainly didn’t add anything, and in some ways makes the actions Mud takes for her to be even more inexplicable. But that’s just my opinion.

Still focussing on the storyline of Juniper leads me on to another criticism of the film that extends to the film in general. As I briefly mentioned the expansive themes and subjects the film touches upon, the film falls foul of not being able to find sufficient endings to all these plot strands, a clear example being the fate of Juniper, and thus gaping plot holes are revealed. Reminiscent of Place Beyond The Pines, the film suffers from rushed plot strands either and a reliance on cliches to move the film back to it’s core. The portrayal of the family of bounty hunters is an good example.

Although these criticisms are few compared to the good parts of the film, they are major issues for me because like Derek Cianfrance, Jeff Nichols is another director who’s previous work thoroughly impressed me. And just like Cianfrance, the same pitfalls befall Nichols. Mud is another ambitious project that has some good moments but also suffers moments that fall foul of such ambition with littered moments of underwriting and cliche (the final moments are a victim of this).

Final Thoughts…

Entering the cinema with a mixture of excited anticipation to be seeing Nichols’ next project and a little dubious of the comparisons to Stand By Me, I came out surprised not with having enjoyed the film for the most part because I expected that to be a given, but at what I had enjoyed about the film. While I guiltily admit I momentarily thought I will probably like the film despite McConaughey, I found I liked the film because of him and the performances of others like Tye Sheridan. It could be said that the writing was secondary.

I would recommend this film if not as a trip-to-the-cinema kind of film but as a nice evening in front of the TV kind of movie. This might not have the power of Take Shelter and actually be a much more inferior film but I can soundly say that for the most part, it’s a decent film.  It hasn’t diminished my interest in Nichols and I anticipate the work that follows.

And its role in resurrecting Matthew McConaughey’s career? It certainly one that the McConaughey can use as evidence that the Re-McConaissance is in full stride.

And I say good for him.

Where can you catch it?

I think the theatrical run is over but it shan’t be long until it’s available on DVD. Bernie, another good McConaughey performance and a good film overall, is currently in cinemas. So I would recommend that instead.

Next Up…

Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby. Will it be The Great Headache that the trailer makes it look to be?