Dir: Jeff Nichols
With: Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon
Runtime: 130 minutes
MATTHEW McConaughey continues his golden run in this dazzling and sultry southern tale of first love and friendship from Jeff Nichols.
Just as the star of Magic Mike, Bernie and The Paperboy is on the rise, so the helmer of Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter is showing himself to be an exceptional directorial talent.
McConaughey plays the Mud of the title, a drifter who has washed up on an island in the Mississippi. Venturing to the same place in search of adventure, Huckleberry friends Ellis and Neckbone (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) are none too pleased to find Mud hiding out there. Neckbone is all for shunning the stranger, but Ellis, drawn in by Mud's desire to win back his true love Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), and faced with his own girl troubles, is won over.
Nichols, writing as well as directing, has created a classic American character in Mud, a man from nowhere who is determined to get somewhere. The two youngsters, Sheridan in particular, are as good as any of the young cast in that coming of age classic Stand By Me.
Another sign of the quality of the piece is Sam Shephard and Michael Shannon (Shotgun Stories, Take Shelter) turning out in supporting roles.
And all the while, the real picture stealer – the mighty, brooding, Mississippi – keeps rolling along in the background, giving up its secrets one by one.
While the plotting might prove too slick for some, Nichols' drama deals as engagingly with the idea of love as Shotgun Stories did revenge and Take Shelter fear.
Half in love with the notion of love and half terrified of it, Mud wraps the viewer in its embrace and never lets go.
Deadfall (15)
HH
Dir: Stefan Ruzowitzky
With: Eric Bana, Olivia Wilde
Runtime: 95 minutes
A PROMISING premise (a brother and sister split up in the wilderness after a robbery goes wrong) and an impressive cast (Eric Bana, Sissy Spacek, Kris Kristofferson) are not enough to revive this leaden thriller. Bana and Olivia Wilde are the siblings on the run, using all their survival skills to get what they want from the locals. Stefan Ruzowitzky's thriller finds even the normally assured Bana struggling to find the right tone, and the feel of the film overall is that of a TV movie trying and failing to be more.
The Reluctant Fundamentalist (15)
HHH
Dir: Mira Nair
With: Riz Ahmed, Liev Schreiber
Runtime: 130 minutes
MOHSIN Hamid's bestseller arrives on the cinema screen with Riz Ahmed in the lead as Changez, a young man from Pakistan who is living the Wall Street dream until 9/11 happens.
As told in flashback via a meeting between Changez and a reporter (Liev Schrieber), Changez's life in the west appears to have been one of influential mentors (Kiefer Sutherland as an utterly convincing master of the universe) and complicated women (Kate Hudson's New York rich girl).
Between global politics, financial maneuverings, and romantic drama, the Salaam Bombay director packs too much into the mix, taking away a lot of the book's tension, but Ahmed and Schreiber make terrific duellists.
Cineworlds Glasgow and Edinburgh; Belmont, Aberdeen
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