Mudbound (2017)
Two men return home from World War II to work on a
farm in rural Mississippi, where they struggle to deal with racism and
adjusting to life after war.
Director:
Dee ReesStars:
Country:
USALanguage:
EnglishRelease Date:
17 November 2017 (USA) See more »Company Credits
Technical Specs
Runtime:
Color:
ColorAspect Ratio:
2.35 : 1Did You Know?
Trivia
The film was premiered at The Sundance Film Festival 2017 where it received a standing ovation. See more »Soundtracks
“Mudbound” is all about perception. How it can foster empathy and
engender contempt, sometimes in the same person. How it can cause one
man to look at his land with life-affirming pride and another man to see
that same plot as the kiss of death. How an act of wartime courage
involving a red-tailed plane and a dark-skinned pilot can forever alter
one’s opinion of a different race. And how a society can impose unfair,
harmful and absurd restrictions on an entire group simply because those
people are seen as inferior by the powers that be. The film invites us
to observe its characters, to hear their inner voices, to see what they
see and to challenge our own preconceived notions about race and gender.
This is a period piece that evokes the grand family epics of old Hollywood, most specifically George Stevens’
1956 film “Giant.” Like George Stevens’ Oscar winner, “Mudbound” is
based on a novel and concerns itself with two families living uneasily
on the same land. Director Dee Rees
masterfully executes her character study, filling the frame with
visuals as big and powerful as the emotions she draws from her superb
cast. This is melodrama of the highest order, which is a compliment, for
melodrama is not a bad thing. It is part of some of the greatest works
of art, and in the right hands, it can elicit an ennui-shattering
response from the audience.
We will follow two families, the Jacksons, who are Black, and the McAllans, who are White. The McAllan patriarch, Henry (Jason Clarke)
is forced to interact with the Jacksons after he is suckered into a
deal to buy land that the seller does not legally own. Henry’s
embarrassment is amplified by the taunting rants of his racist father
Pappy (Jonathan Banks)
and the notion that he has to move into an area designated for a lower
class of Whites than he believes himself to be. Henry is constantly
reminded of his downgraded stature by the repeated appearances of Vera
Atwood (Lucy Faust),
a struggling, poor White woman whom he deludes himself into thinking is
below his station. Vera is Henry’s ghost of Christmas Future, a
reminder that he is one mistake away from her desperate existence. For
these reasons, Henry despises the land where he resides.
By comparison, pastor Hap Jackson (Rob Morgan)
looks at his little plot of land as a gift from God, a blessing that
actually elevates his stature from that of his ancestors who couldn’t
own land at all. It may be a harsh, at times unforgiving piece of Earth,
but he has some form of ownership, no matter how tenuous. Even though
Henry has commandeered it mostly for himself, leaving Hap to sharecrop
it for diminishing returns, Hap still finds joy, solace and meaning in
his farm work. As a Black man in post-WWII America, Hap has become
accustomed to making due with even the smallest scraps of good fortune,
no matter how infuriating they may seem. Hap is an experienced veteran
of the war with Jim Crow; he has bent his anger into a strong, almost
impenetrable suit of stoic armor whose weak spots are known only by his
loving wife, Florence (Mary J. Blige).
Henry also has a wife, Laura (Carey Mulligan). Through her story, we first become aware that “Mudbound” presents its characters in parallel sets of two. (Rachel Morrison’s
cinematography also works in this fashion—notice how each family’s
house is lit.) Laura’s partner in this arrangement is Florence, another
mother who, like Laura, has the socially accepted role of subservience
to her man. Both Florence and Laura buck this trend by disobeying their
husbands. They also share a moment of grief that bonds them as only two
mothers can bond. As the elder of the two, Florence exhibits a maternal
instinct toward Laura.
Laura also gets the first of the film’s internal monologues, moments of voiceover that Rees wrote with Virgil Williams in the adaptation of Hillary Jordan’s
novel. Most of the characters have soliloquys that allow us a
temporarily omniscient point of view. They provide invaluable
information in a fashion that is at times achingly poetic yet completely
natural. Florence’s words are especially powerful, rendered by Blige in
an excellent performance that mixes the stoicism of Gloria Foster
in “Nothing But a Man” with the mischievous twinkle that occasionally
popped into a young Cicely Tyson's eye when her characters thought
nobody was looking.
Florence and the rest of Hap’s family will be
called upon several times to assist the McAllans. Henry’s demands are
always delivered in a manner that on the surface sounds like a polite
request, yet his tone of voice always stresses that saying no to a White
man is not an option. Clarke delivers these lines in squirm-inducing
fashion, though the level of discomfort depends on your perception—you
may not feel it at all. And though it would appear that Henry has some
regard for his counterpart, it becomes clear that he views Hap as too
inferior to earn any empathy. Still, “Mudbound” doesn’t treat him as a
standard-issue villain; his inner monologues and his interactions with
Laura give him a complexity that allows us to understand his actions.
Part of that understanding comes from observing Pappy, a drunk who
raised his sons to capitalize on the best White supremacy and privilege
have to offer. Pappy has no internal monologues because he’s all
surface. His inner voice would sound as racist, corrupt and disgusting
as the things everyone hears him say out loud. Banks makes him more than
just a one-note character; he’s genuinely menacing and scary enough to
dissuade Henry from any sort of racial growth. Henry is bound to his
father by guilt, taking him in even when Laura would rather have him
burn in Hell, but Henry’s brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund)
manages to escape long enough to have an unexpected change of heart as
far as Black people are concerned. Unfortunately for Jamie, his escape
was World War II.
Florence’s son, Ronsel (Jason Mitchell)
also served in World War II, battling the Germans and becoming the
lover of a German woman he met overseas. He returns to a country that
not only refuses to thank him for his service, but also expects him to
return to second-class citizenry once he’s back on U.S. soil. The fact
that Ronsel is treated better in the enemy country than his own is not
lost on us. It will be underlined twice in the film’s bittersweet
ending. Ronsel’s scenes with the White townsfolk upon his return are an
unsubtle reminder that the America we’re seeing in this film is the one
that certain voters want to bring back into existence.
Jamie and
Ronsel bond over their shared war experiences, though initially, Ronsel
is skeptical and worried about Jamie’s intentions. Jamie tells him that a
Tuskegee Airman saved his ass in a dogfight, and that changed his
perspective on race. Their friendship is anchored by war stories and
booze, of which Jamie drinks too much to drown out symptoms of his PTSD.
Nobody understands this the way Ronsel does, but their relationship
immediately casts a sense of dread over the film. This progressive
partnership is a dangerous one, because Jamie’s a loose cannon and
Ronsel is unwilling to go back to racist rules now that he’s had a taste
of freedom. So when “Mudbound” becomes terrifyingly violent, we have
been prepped for it. Rees handles this, and the subsequent vengeance
that follows, with amazing restraint, keeping it from becoming
exploitative without diminishing any of its shock value.
Though “Mudbound” presents most of its story and its characters in
parallels of two, Ronsel is the one character who shares traits with
other characters. Like Florence, he has both a charitable and a stubborn
streak, which is evidenced in a wonderful scene where he buys her a bar
of chocolate. When Florence intends to break it into pieces and give it
to her other kids, Ronsel demands that she keep the entire thing for
herself. Have a taste of your own freedom, just as I had for myself in
the service, he seems to say to her. It’s a well-played small moment in a
movie filled with them.
While the entire cast is superb,
“Mudbound” belongs to Blige, Mitchell and Hedlund. Hedlund’s roguish
performance is a loose, sexy throwback to Errol Flynn and James Dean—he
would have been right at home in front of George Stevens’ camera or
underscored by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. Blige is a revelation. And
Mitchell deservingly earns the film’s last internal monologue, a quiet,
bittersweet and moving meditation on choosing love over hate that proves
that Ronsel is the film’s true hero.
I do know that it supports his
thesis that movies are machines that generate empathy. I believe that
viewers of different races will find different entry points into the
film, but everyone will come out at the end with their viewpoints
challenged and perhaps enriched. Rees and company have crafted an
unforgettable plea for empathy and justice. This is not an easy film,
but it’s an essential one.
FINAL RATING: 10/10 FOR THE GENRE & 9/10 OVERALL. Masterful drama set in 1940s South has brutality, racism.
Thanks for reading and have fun watching movies.
