Storytelling is the essence of moviemaking, and yet many modern movies refuse, avoid or fail to put their running time to that purpose.  Summer action movies especially are designed to overwhelm audiences with eye-popping visuals, kinetic movement and stylish posing by their attractive performers.  There’s nothing wrong with that — in limited amounts, of course — yet it is nice to find a movie finely crafted that tells a meaningful human story.  Such is Mud.

Think of it as a darker version of Stand by Me, the 1986 coming-of-age film of four friends who find a dead body and have to decide what to do about it.  That movie, based on a Stephen King short story and directed with finesse by Rob Reiner, is an unsung classic.  Like Stand by Me, Mud focuses its attention on adolescent boys who find themselves in a dramatic, possibly dangerous situation.  Two Arkansas boys (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) encounter a man on an island in the Mississippi River. The man (Matthew McConaughey) is Mud, who befriends the boys and enlists their help to retrieve a boat stuck up in a tree to flee the island with his girlfriend, who is coming to meet him there.  The boys eventually learn that Mud is a fugitive, and his girlfriend (Reese Witherspoon) is already in town looking for him.

Jeff Nichols’ movie takes its time to establish the friendship between the two boys, which is wonderfully natural and convincing, before moving into the nuances of the story.  The river culture is, likewise, deftly detailed, encompassing a community of people who know about and tolerate each other while generally preferring to exist apart and alone.  Into this world journeys Mud, and the men who are after him for killing one of their own.  The boys have to decide where their allegiances lie, and why, and their actions have huge consequences.

Mud cannot avoid a bit of melodrama, particularly as it nears its inevitable climax, yet the film is so beautifully written and acted that it never loses its charm or power. The most distracting presence is that of Reese Witherspoon as the trashy girlfriend Juniper; Witherspoon is fine in the role but it seems like she is slumming in this type of a part.  McConaughey is terrific as the title character, treating the boys as adults while manipulating them to get what he needs.  Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon and Joe Don Baker have key roles as well.  But the movie belongs to the young boys, Ellis (Sheridan) and Neckbone (Lofland).  Their dilemma about Mud complicates their already complicated and confused home lives, and brings them to maturity (and the resulting loss of innocence) sooner than would otherwise be necessary.

Jeff Nichols has written and directed a movie which captures their world in all its beauty, serenity, danger and tumult.  Some things could have been explored in more detail — for instance why the River Authority is so insistent on eliminating the houses along the Mississippi — but what is onscreen is generally masterful.  Mud is a terrific movie, one of the finest of the year.  ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2.  11 June 2013.