Jeff Nichols
Mud

The director from Little Rock had already hinted at some qualities with "Take Shelter" that earned him general acclaim from both audiences and critics (Grand Prix at Cannes in 2011). Two years later, his third film, "Mud", an independent film, again confirms Jeff Nichols as one of the few American filmmakers with aesthetic taste and an auteur's pursuit of cinema worth showcasing.

Ellis and Neckbone are two 14-year-old boys who have found a boat on an island along the Mississippi River and want to claim it as their own. But Mud (Matthew McConaughey), whose past isn't entirely clean, lives in that makeshift "home," having isolated himself and waiting for the return of his Juniper (Reese Witherspoon). The two boys, especially Ellis, become friends with Mud in his personal endeavor to set things right with Juniper.

It's a "coming of age" story, a bildungsroman, a depiction of the inevitability of fate. "There are some things you can escape in this world and others you can't." Every single character in the work has lost part of their battle for life, has been defeated by something, or continues to be defeated by something. As if pain is an integral and inseparable part of our existence. "Life is hard work," says the father to his son Ellis. It's better to make things clear from the start. A journey of growth for all the protagonists, from the youngest to the oldest, each will find themselves questioning their lives made up of affections and fears. In "Mud," everyone must find their path, and it is through the curious and innocent eyes of the boys that there is still hope for something different. They have not yet truly understood the difficulties of life; they help Mud because deep down "he's not dangerous" and because they still believe in a romantic and almost platonic vision of love, which Neckbone has never known because he is without parents, and Ellis begins to lose, suffering the wounds of his parents' separation. It is their innocence that permeates the film, that condition in which there are still no "filters" and pure feelings drive human beings. Exactly the opposite of adults, like the old Tom (a great Sam Shepard) lost in his gruff solitude, or like Mud himself, unable to act and secluded in his world of "evil spirits" and superstitions.

It would be extremely reductive to consider "Mud" as an adventure story of two boys because if you look deeper into Nichols' film, you perceive his disenchanted vision of a reality that is disintegrating, starting from one of its basic elements like family. Love is changeable and, like the fate that has turned its back on the protagonists, it is also deceitful and leaves you suddenly alone. The condition that leads to "breaking" is incommunicability, the fear of taking a step forward. Mud is unable to confront his past and get closer to Juniper and "uses" the two boys to fuel a dream he knows will not be fulfilled. Ellis's parents use their son as a vent for their personal issues and do not talk, do not discuss, but close themselves in their conviction of always being on the side of truth. That incommunicability that inevitably transforms into the creation of an "other" reality made of lies upon lies.

Nichols' film almost seems like a cinematic emanation of the pages of the novel "Suttree" by Cormac McCarthy, tempering its darker atmosphere but embracing that decadent and defeated soul that permeates the epic of the fisherman Buddy Suttree. Again, Nichols directs with rare grace and here and there touches on Malick's search for environments without ever being self-indulgent in his visual celebration. Even in the mise en scène, Nichols demonstrates a veteran's touch and an attentive care for detail that is aesthetically satisfying. It is the American South communicating with its colors. It is Arkansas pulsing with its contradictions and showing all its dazzling beauty.

After "Take Shelter" (a film I highly recommend), Jeff Nichols directs another story that, in addition to pure narrative, reveals that poor and self-contained America that many seem afraid to bring to the cinema. "Mud" is a real film because it speaks of this and of those feelings we are now afraid to communicate. Nichols draws strength from his authorial style (not overly exhibited) and delivers another personal film that hurts by touching the heart.