Mud

Jeff Nichols, writer and director of the film "Mud", when asked by a reporter on the New York Times what the film was about, replied "It's Sam Peckinpah meets Mark Twain". It isn't. In many reviews Mark Twain is mentioned with particular reference to "Huckleberry Finn" (no other mention of Sam Peckinpah) but the film has only a passing similarity to the novel: it's set in Mississippi, on a river, yes, and is about a boy who makes friends with an outlaw,yes, but it's theme is not of the world of Twain. Again, a critic wrote in today's newspaper, summing up the film with four stars: "Down on the MIssissippi, two boys discover Mud (Matthew McConaughey) in an adventure of the Hucklberry Finn kind".
It's all a bit troubling since this film is of a superior kind to most movies and its story has very little resemblance to Twain's book.
While on the surface it is an adventure - a boy of 14, Ellis, and his friend, Neckbone, meet an odd guy living rough on an island; he has shot a man over a woman and he is being chased by a gang recruited by the dead man's father and brother, two rather frightening people; he's also being chased by the police, in league with the father; the boys decide to help Mud because Ellis feels that Mud's devotion to the woman he loved, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) is so genuine, greater for example than that of his own mother and father who are breaking up etc. - but while it is an adventure, it is also a study of a boy's beginning of an understanding of what adult love is, how chancy and unstable it is: Ellis finds he is surrounded by deceit and game-playing - even Mud's and Juniper's affection is not the deeply held love Ellis felt it was.
Great performance by the boys and by McConaughey.
But the film's too long by at least half an hour.