Mud Reviews

Often the movies absorb these ideas in plots that are eager to retread to action and violence, but Nichols finds a resonating and sharp tone here that understates those desires.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

A highly personal tale of undergrown men and overgrown boys experiencing the growing pains of love turned unrequited, and the realization that nothing-not freedom, not security, not innocence, not love-lasts forever. [Blu-ray]

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

Mud improves steadily as it progresses, however, as Nichols does a superb job of fleshing out the story and characters...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Mud should cement [writer-director Jeff Nichols'] reputation as a storyteller capable of extracting intense excitement from character-based dramas.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Warm, humorous, and smart, a Huckleberry Finnish snapshot of carefree boyhood on the brink of adolescence.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

Mud is about the fragility of men, the craving to be loved - by a woman, by other men - and how easily that love is misplaced, taken away, cheated or lost.

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Mud has a rare big-screen beauty, and its old-fashioned storytelling recalls A River Runs Through It, Night of the Hunter, and Stand By Me.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

This moody, broody character-driven crime story is another fine step in the career redemption of Matthew McConaughey.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Mud is the kind of small scale, character driven drama one rarely sees out of the States any more, and cements Nichols as one of his country's most significant independent auteurs.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

Just like its lead character, this film is packed to the brim with sadness, swagger and soul.

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All the women in this movie are shrews, liars and/or emasculators.

Full Review | Original Score: C+

Mud is a moving exploration into the nature of manhood, with superb performances, striking location and engrossing story creating a mesmerising and heartfelt coming of age drama.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

A stripped back approach to tracking the process of growing up, but lacks the faith to see the plan executed to the end

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Nichols takes his time unravelling Mud and Ellis's entwined fates, but his characters are so rich that it's well worth being in their company.

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In its energy and nuance, Mud seems like the kind of film Hollywood would've made in the Seventies, and would've continued to do if not for the advent of market-conscious filmmaking.

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More than a mere tribute to Twain and Dickens: this has all the makings of a modern classic.

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An extremely sophisticated and progressive examination on how adolescent masculinity is defined by often-contradictory cultural attitudes towards femininity.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

For at least three-quarters of the way, this is a fine film, and one that kids and parents could see together.

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Mud is as beautiful to watch as it is to listen to, and feel kinship to, whether you're from the South or just Southern at heart.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

In Jeff Nichols, America has a champion of the religious and working class. With the schism between the right and left in the U.S. growing ever larger... his ascent couldn't have come at a better time.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5