‘Mud’

After writing and directing the best film of 2011, “Take Shelter,” Jeff Nichols is back with “Mud,” a film for all of the senses and another masterful piece of storytelling that secures Nichols as a serious modern cinematic talent.

“Mud” is a coming-of-age story about a boy named Ellis (Tye Sheridan), who is experiencing the kind of summer where the adventure of childhood yields to the more severe reality of adulthood, including the possibility that his parents may not love each other anymore. Ellis lives in a worn down houseboat in Southeast Arkansas along the Mississippi River. He often cruises down the river on an old boat with his best friend, Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), and one day the two venture off to a small island where they discover a curious sight: a boat lodged high in a tree.

They climb inside the boat, planning to claim it and use it as a makeshift clubhouse, when Ellis finds a grocery bag contain bread and beans and realizes someone already has claimed the boat and is living there. They climb down, head back out to the river to leave and come across a tall, filthy man called Mud (Matthew McConaughey). Mud wears nails shaped like crosses in the heels of his boots, which he says ward off evil spirits, blue jeans and a button down shirt, his lucky shirt, he tells the boys.

He also has a few tattoos and carries a gun in his belt, which he says is for protection against some bad people who are looking for him.

Much of what the boys come to know about Mud comes from Mud himself, but how reliable is the man with the mysterious past and the crosses in his boots, the man who is stranded on an island trying to fix up the boat in the tree and escape with his lost love, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), a woman living in town and seemingly under some kind of threat just like Mud?

Let’s talk about McConaughey for a minute, and his stellar, nuanced performance here that continues his long, successful climb from making a string of bad movies — “Failure to Launch,” “Fool’s Gold” and “Ghost of Girlfriends Past,” anyone? — to making brilliant movies. It started with “The Lincoln Lawyer,” which featured his best performance, continued with “Bernie” and “Killer Joe,” two more career bests, and Stephen Soderbergh’s “Magic Mike,” in which he stole the show as male stripper Dallas.

Now comes “Mud,” which features perhaps the best performance of his career as he continues to raise the bar for himself and for his career. This is strong, rich material and McConaughey delivers, developing the character Mud with such sadness and heartbreak, layered into an unstable, obsessive man capable of both love and reason, but not at the same time.

Also notable are knockout performances from young actors Sheridan and Lofland, and veteran actors Shepard and Joe Don Baker, who plays Mud’s nemesis, King, who in one chilling scene hosts a prayer group brought together to pray for Mud’s death. There also is a terrific turn by Michael Shannon, a Nichols regular, as Neckbone’s eccentric Uncle Galen, and two moving performances by Witherspoon, and Sarah Paulson and Ray McKinnon as Ellis’ estranged parents.

With the richness of a great novel, “Mud” unfolds at a slow, deliberate pace, affording every character the chance to develop into living and breathing people, including Sam Shepard’s supposed ex-CIA sniper, Tom Blankenship, who lives across the river from Ellis and mostly keeps to himself in his retirement, but who also is a paternal entity in Mud’s life.

The ebb and flow of the story, and the way Nichols allows it to happen in front of us so naturally, is remarkable, particularly in context of today’s American cinema. Like many great filmmakers, rather than rushing toward thrills and dramatic catharsis, Nichols takes his time and earns the emotional resonance we come to feel in the final moments of the film, and then continue to feel after we leave the theater. “Mud” is not a film we see and then forget: it stays with you, and will no doubt reward multiple viewings.

So far, “Mud” is the best film of 2013. Once again, Nichols and cinematographer Adam Stone craft a visually striking, unforgettable experience that reestablishes just how powerful filmmaking can be.

★★★★ (out of 4)