Mud (***1/2)

Who’d have expected to see Matthew McConaughey in a thoughtful coming-of-age story set on the Arkansas/Mississippi border? The titles of Fool’s Gold and Failure to Launch might almost have been metaphors for his career, although he’s mixed in some good movies too. Still, with his turn as a male stripper in Magic Mike, his upcoming role in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, and even his small part in Bernie, he seems to a have been choosing a higher percentage of noteworthy projects lately. (The July/August 2013 Atlantic includes the actor in a list of “Once-Discredited Ideas Now Staging Comebacks.”) McConaughey is the biggest name here, and plays the title character, but not actually the main one. Instead, Mud becomes the vehicle through which an idealistic 14-year old (Tye Sheridan), Ellis begins to understand the complexities of adult relationships, and romantic ones.

Ellis’s parents are threatening to split; for him, the primary meaning of this will be having to move from his home by the river and become a “townie.” A more programmatic plot might have made Mud into a wise father figure imparting wisdom. But wise men are not often found living alone on an island, where Ellis and his best friend find him. Why Mud is there, and what/who he’s waiting for, becomes clearer as the movie goes on, even as his true character becomes murkier. (His name stays mysterious.) Mud does impart wisdom, but subtly. The ending is probably less subtle, and less ambiguous, than I’d have preferred, but I suspect I’d be in the minority, and it’s certainly not awful.


IMDb link


viewed 6/13/13 and reviewed 6/14–17/13

Youth in Revolt (***1/4)

Michael Cera plays Nick, not the Nick he played in Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist, but another in a series of virgin boys (see Arrested Development, Juno, Superbad) in this adaptation of C.D. Payne’s coming-of-age novel. Saddled with a loser-dating mom (Jean Smart) and a meek personality, Nick meets Sheeni (Portia Doubleday) on a holiday and is smitten. Screenwriter Gustin Nash (Charlie Bartlett) use a shared love of foreign film directors (he, Fellini; she, Goddard) and classic vocalists (he, Sinatra; she, Serge Gainesbourg) as an easy shorthand to depict their right-for-each-otherness. It’s one thing to have a 16-year-old be into Goddard’s Breathless (1960) and quite another for her to assume, upon first meeting Nick, that he’s heard of it, let alone seen it. But the movie is short and not about the falling in love; it doesn’t really have time to get far into its characters’ shared love of turntables and middle-20th-century culture, nor whether they are truly meant to be for all time. No, it is about the special impediments to the progress of young love, and how Nick overcomes them.

To surmount these obstacles, Nick imagines himself, as bold, devil-may-care François, who appeals to Sheeni’s love of French things, notably the actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. Perhaps Nick is inspired by Play It Again, Sam, in which the imagined ghost of Humphrey Bogart inspires Woody Allen. The Nick-as-François bits account for only a few minutes of screen time, but do at least demonstrate Cera’s ability to play something other than the one-step-above-nerdy guy. Oh, and they’re funny. Lying and other misbehavior ensue.

IMDB link

viewed 1/5/10 at UA Main Street Manayunk (PFS screening)