Written at the time of the film's release....although I've added a couple of current addendums because this writer-director is so good and his work sought out.
Possession is 9/10 of the Law or Lookin' for Love in All the Wrong Places
The last film that Jeff Nichols wrote and directed was the very interesting, very odd, and quite layered Take Shelter.* His latest, Mud, is part coming-of-age movie, part Southern Gothic, part classic romance and part tragedy and complete curiosity. It features a couple of great kid performances and a top-tier cast supporting them. Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland play two tweeners living on the Mississippi River. They're a couple of restless kids who are hired help in their families, but with minimal supervision, have the freedom to sneak out at night exploring. On one of those pre-dawn excursions they motor over to an island and find a wonder—a boat nestled in a tree. Checking it out, they're in for a shock. Someone's living there.
That someone is Mud (Matthew McConaughey) who is eking out an existence there. How he got there is a mystery. Why he's there is not. He's killed a man, who was messing with the girl he loves, and that man has a powerful family (led by Joe Don Baker). He's hiding out, waiting for word from Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), and when he hears, they'll run off together, where...well, that's a little unspecific.
In the meantime, he uses the little go-betweeners to get food, supplies, and word out, that includes to one of Ellis' (Sheridan) neighbors, a solitary man named Tom Blankenship (Sam Shepard), who Mud labels "an assassin." Blankenship calls Mud a liar, making Ellis slightly conflicted; he's willing to do anything for Mud in his quixotic quest, out of a young man's puppy-love instincts, in part a response to the fracturing marriage of his parents (Ray McKinnon, Sarah Paulson) and his own interactions with "townie" girls, particularly May Pearl (Bonnie Sturdivant).
It's to Ellis' advantage that he and "Neckbone" (Lofland) are under the radar of everybody's notice, his parents have other concerns and Neckbone's uncle (Michael Shannon) is in his own little world, so the two boys go back and forth between mainland and island with messages and supplies, which becomes increasingly complex when Mud decides he's going to get that boat out of the tree. And when Ellis, in his come-to-the-rescue way, interferes when one of the goons keeping an eye on Juniper gets aggressive with her trying to get information about Mud's whereabouts.
Things begin to spiral out of control to a conclusion that can't come to any good, despite everyone's best and worst intentions, due to the breaking of borders between the insular natures of the players.
But, there's something else going on here that creeps like an adder through the Louisiana swamp, something to do with misogyny. Maybe it's just the timing of events—not accidental as it's all in the control of the writer-director—but all the problems seem to generate from the war between men and women. The women here—Juniper, Ellis' mom, May Pearl—have an edge of capriciousness and undependability (in the males' eyes, anyway) that derails their plans and dreams.
The men are hardly blameless, going through their lives with their eyes wide shut, totally aware that the women in their lives may prove disastrous in the short term, while they're quixotically playing the hero or the rescuer, anyway. Everybody has some romantic view of life that is not theirs, and their pursuit of it proves their undoing. One leaves the theater with the sense of a good story well told, but with a stake through the heart in the futility of good intentions. One wants the waters of life to be smooth and transparent, but the reality of it is that it's the consistency of the movie's title.
It's a beautiful film, too. Beautifully shot by Adam Stone.
2021 note: Nichols hasn't made a film since this one and that's a real shame. He's been working on one film, but has been hired by John Krasinski to make A Quiet Place, Part III. Well, whatever gets him back behind the camera. His work is too good not to be making something. Whatever it is, it is of worth.
* I should mention here in 2021 that he's also made a couple other film's I've loved—2016's Midnight Special and the same year, Loving.
While I catch up on the reviews still in "Draft" phase here, I'll re-run a feature I ran when I first started this blog seven years ago,* when it was suggested I do a "Top Ten" List.
I don't like those: they're rather arbitrary; they pit films against each other, and there's always one or two that should be on the list that aren't because something better shoved it down the trash-bin.
So, I came up with this: "Anytime" Movies. Anytime Movies are the movies I can watch anytime, anywhere. If I see a second of it, I can identify it. If it shows up on television, my attention is focused on it until the conclusion. Sometimes it’s the direction, sometimes it’s the writing, sometimes it’s the acting, sometimes it’s just the idea behind it, but these are the movies I can watch again and again (and again!) and never tire of them. There are ten (kinda). They're not in any particular order, but the #1 movie IS the #1 movie. And we begin in as contrary a way as possible (so as to avoid any comparison to a "Top Ten" list). This one is unusual in that it's a bonus (like the joke in This is Spinal Tap, "Anytime Movies" go all the way up to eleven).
And that's not all that's different about this entry:
What the hell is this? It’s not a classic movie!
Oh, it’s worse than that! It’s not even a movie! It’s a British mini-series.
Okay, so what’s so special about it that it squeezes into the “Wild Card” position of the “Anytime Movies” list over, say,CasablancaorGone With the Wind, or your favorite film?
1. It’s a police procedural, as steeped in the gritty realism of shabby interrogation rooms and bad neon-tube-lighting as “NYPD Blue” or “Prime Suspect.” 2. It’s a spy story, with rogue undercover operatives (particularly an eccentric CIA operative by the name of Darius Jedburgh, played in the performance of his career by Joe Don Baker), chases (two stand out--an edge-of-your-seat hacking exercise, and another through an abandoned nuclear facility) and intrigue on the part of government, and commerce.
3. It’s a political thriller, with investigations into government corruption and collaboration with a privatized nuclear industry, that involves Union-busting, suppression of environmental groups, and murder.
4. It’s a revenge story, as a police investigator attempts to find who murdered his daughter...or whether the bullet was meant for him?.
5. It’s a ghost story, as that murdered daughter keeps coming back to advise and inspire her father’s efforts, as he sinks deeper and deeper into an ever-expanding investigation, that, in the real world, he is being encouraged to abandon.
6. It’s a psychological thriller—because maybe she isn’t really there, and is just a figment of his severe grief.
7. It’s a black comedy—it has some of the most absurd sequences ever put to film (a sumptuous dinner in an underground "hot" room), and some of the funniest lines ("He's in the field," but you have to be there).
8. On top of that, it’s a story of myth, although grounded in reality, for, impossibly, one of the main protagonists (and an alarming participant in the story) would appear to be the Earth goddess, Gaea.
9. It has one of the best performances I’ve ever seen, by the hawk-faced Bob Peck (you might remember him as the game warden Muldoon in Jurassic Park. You don’t? One line: “Clever girrrl…” Now you know him)
10. It crosses genres, and expectations and always keeps you guessing not only what will happen next, but what COULD happen next. It seems to revel in going 90° from normal at every juncture. It is truly a thrilling film.
11. It has one of the most down-beat endings ever put to film. But it’s okay—it's assured the bad guys will lose. The Good Earth will win.
After years of kvetching about there being no DVD release, BBC Home Entertainment finally released an impressive 2 disc set of this one in 2009, directed by Martin Campbell, who ushered in two new James Bonds in two of the best movies in the series and the two Antonio Banderas Zorro films (and, subsequently, the theatrical film version with Mel Gibson, which doesn't compare). One should also make note of the exceptional Troy Kennedy-Martin screenplay, and the music by the late Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton. Peck is gone now, as well, and it would have been nice to see him in other things, so good is he in this. But it’s another in a long string of sad eventualities for this odd, crazy, thrilling piece of film-making. You gotta love the British. We could never do this in the States.
They deserve the Falklands.
Craven (Bob Peck) finds a gun in his dead daughter's teddy-bear.
The Natural(Barry Levinson, 1984) Bernard Malamud's novel "The Natural" took America's penchant for mythologizing its sports-heroes, and combined it with Arthurian legend to create one of the great sports novels of all time.
The tale of a baseball player, Roy Hobbs (played in the movie by Robert Redford) mysteriously appearing in Major League Baseball relatively late for a career usually populated by young men, seemingly effortless of bat and glove, creating miracles in the field, has all the elements of nature and the Divine (his bat, "Wonderboy", was carved from a tree struck by lightning), the contest (he strikes out "The Whammer" (based on "Babe" Ruth), trials (his father's death, a near-fatal shooting, lost love) and battles which weaken him and threaten his reputation. Malamud completes the connection with Legend, by making Roy Hobbes vulnerable to attack from within and without, finally defeated by the passing age and his own failings.
Front-loaded with so much talent one would think of the natural as a grand-slam, the mythology built up to accentuate suspense** (Will Hobbs hit the game-winning home run? Will it kill him? What about his new-found family? Will the gambling interests destroy him, no matter what?) It comes down to the last pitch and a finale so overblown that the only thing that could top it would be Hobbs ascending into Heaven, forget the impossibility of the stadium-wide natural fireworks display of the type pulled off by Levinson and crew. The crowd I first saw it with burst into spontaneous applause at the denouement, so, obviously it was a hit with audiences, despite what I considered an error on the play. Me? I thought the game was rigged.
For in Malamud's novel, Hobbs strikes out, is damned by the press and public and fades away, a passing moment of the age, when miracles happened unsullied by the evils of the world like the Knights of Olde. Hobbs is defeated by the times. Not the movie-Hobbs, who is given his triumph and more, a return to simplicity, the sinking sun of previous shots now giving him a roseate glow,*** a Disneyfication of Malamud's intent.
* Redford, according to Newman, wasn't fond of the score: "I don't like horns" he was reported to have groused to the composer. Cooler heads prevailed. During an interview broadcast on Bravo, Newman said that there were half-hearted lyrics for the fanfaric Main Theme: "Look at that man/The Nat'ral/As nat'ral a man as can be/He hits the ball/And that's not all/So Na-tu-ral/Is he."
** I would put a "Spoiler Alert" on this review, but, really, the outcome is never in doubt, telegraphed by the score's hushed anticipation, and that everything joyous in the film, is presented in weighty slow-motion. Besides at that point in his career, Redford didn't want his characters to be weak—he had turned down the fallible lead character in the legal drama The Verdict, a role his pal Paul Newman snapped up and for which he won a Best Actor Nomination. *** The term used for those hours of twilight and dawn with the sun at its lowest point, providing long shadows, and a rose-colored glow is "Magic Hour."
While I have a few reviews "in the works," It's as good a time as any to re-boot (actually transplant from the old movie blog) a feature I started years ago, when it was suggested I do a "Top Ten" List.
I don't like those: they're rather arbitrary; they pit films against each other, and there's always one or two that should be on the list that aren't because something better shoved it down the trash-bin.
So, I came up with this: "Anytime" Movies. Anytime Movies are the movies I can watch anytime, anywhere. If I see a second of it, I can identify it. If it shows up on television, my attention is focused on it until the conclusion. Sometimes it’s the direction, sometimes it’s the writing, sometimes it’s the acting, sometimes it’s just the idea behind it, but these are the movies I can watch again and again (and again!) and never tire of them. There are ten (kinda). They're not in any particular order, but the #1 movie IS the #1 movie. And we begin in as contrary a way as possible—so as to avoid any comparison to a "Top Ten." This one is unusual in that it's a bonus (like the joke in This is Spinal Tap, Anytime Movies go all the way up to eleven). And that's not all: What the hell is this? It’s not a classic movie!
Oh, it’s worse than that! It’s not even a movie! It’s a British mini-series.
Okay, so what’s so special about it that it squeezes into the “Wild Card” position of the “Anytime Movies” list over, say,CasablancaorGone With the Wind, or your favorite film?
1. It’s a police procedural, as steeped in the gritty realism of shabby interrogation rooms and bad neon-tube-lighting as “NYPD Blue” or “Prime Suspect.” 2. It’s a spy story, with rogue undercover operatives (particularly an eccentric CIA operative by the name of Darius Jedburgh, played in the performance of his career by Joe Don Baker), chases (two stand out--an edge-of-your-seat hacking exercise, and another through an abandoned nuclear facility) and intrigue on the part of goverment, and commerce.
3. It’s a political thriller, with investigations into government corruption and collaboration with a privatized nuclear industry, that involves Union-busting, suppression of environmental groups, and murder.
4. It’s a revenge story, as a police investigator attempts to find who murdered his daughter...or whether the bullet was meant for him?.5. It’s a ghost story, as that murdered daughter keeps coming back to advise and inspire her father’s efforts, as he sinks deeper and deeper into an ever-expanding investigation, that, in the real world, he is being encouraged to abandon.
6. It’s a psychological thriller—because maybe she isn’t really there, and is just a figment of his severe grief.
7. It’s a black comedy—it has some of the most absurd sequences ever put to film (a sumptuous dinner in an underground "hot" room), and some of the funniest lines ("He's in the field," but you have to be there).
8. On top of that, it’s a story of myth, although grounded in reality, for, impossibly, one of the main protagonists (and an alarming participant in the story) would appear to be the Earth goddess, Gaea.
9. It has one of the best performances I’ve ever seen, by the hawk-faced Bob Peck (you might remember him as the game warden Muldoon in Jurassic Park. You don’t? One line: “Clever girrrl…” Now you know him)
10. It crosses genres, and expectations and always keeps you guessing not only what will happen next, but what COULD happen next. It seems to revel in going 90° from normal at every juncture. It is truly a thrilling film.
11. It has one of the most down-beat endings ever put to film. But it’s okay—it's assured the bad guys will lose. The Good Earth will win.
After years of kvetching about there being no DVD release, BBC Home Entertainment finally released an impressive 2 disc set of this one in 2009, directed by Martin Campbell, who ushered in two new James Bonds in two of the best movies in the series and the two Antonio Banderas Zorro films (and, subsequently, the theatrical film version with Mel Gibson, which doesn't compare). One should also make note of the exceptional Troy Kennedy-Martin screenplay, and the music by the late Michael Kamen and Eric Clapton. Peck is gone now, as well, and it would have been nice to see him in other things, so good is he in this. But it’s another in a long string of sad eventualities for this odd, crazy, thrilling piece of film-making. You gotta love the British. We could never do this in the States.
They deserve the Falklands.
Craven (Bob Peck) finds a gun in his daughter's teddy-bear.
