DRAMA; 2hr 10min
STARRING: Matthew McConaughey, Tye Sheridan, Jacob Lofland, Reese Witherspoon, Sarah Paulson, Ray McKinnon
![](https://image.jimcdn.com/app/cms/image/transf/dimension=448x10000:format=jpg/path/sfda5936f351b035b/image/ida7f016b6ed7503f/version/1622344387/image.jpg)
His name is… McConaughey
With some kids, you can see the man in the boy’s face. Tye Sheridan is one. His gravity works tellingly as watchful 14-year-old Arkansas boy Ellis, who wears his heart in his eyes and in his fists. It’s Ellis who takes the lead from his more wary friend, Neckbone (Lofland), by lending a hand to a stranger (a leathery McConaughey as Mud) living rough on a Mississippi island.
Mud is waiting for the woman with whom he’s obsessively in love (Witherspoon). He’s also a wanted man. Ellis, grappling meanwhile with his parents’ upcoming divorce and the family’s uprooting from their houseboat, admires what he sees as Mud’s old-school chivalry, even though the unvarnished facts tell a darker story.
Take Shelter writer-director Jeff Nichols’s considered rhythms keeps their outcome options open as the net tightens around Mud, and the boys become his sole hope of escape. Down-pat resolutions are never in the picture, and that’s exactly the way it should be. People are an endless puzzle, after all, especially when viewed through the artless gaze of a child.
![](https://image.jimcdn.com/app/cms/image/transf/dimension=114x10000:format=png/path/sfda5936f351b035b/image/i155575ccf60d1e14/version/1622344163/image.png)