54. Mud (2012)

January 26, 2014

Until recently, my wife and I had never been big fans of Matthew McConoughey, but he has really been awesome lately! McConoughey plays the title character, Mud, as a mysterious drifter with a strange past. The main characters in the film are Ellis and Neckbone, two kids that live on the river and meet Mud one day when they are exploring and find a boat stuck up in a tree. Mud tells the boys his story about how he is waiting for his girlfriend who is coming to get him so they can leave and start their lives over. It turns out that Mud's girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon) had been dating another man who was abusive to her, and Mud actually killed that man, so now the man's family start antagonizing Witherspoon to try to get to Mud. It was more complex than that, though. As good as McConoughey is as Mud, the boy who played Ellis is really the star of the show, and he will be someone who hopefully makes it big. It was a very good movie that was slow in parts but always interesting.