PARK CITY – There is a moment toward the end of Dee Rees’ “Mudbound” that caused the audience attending its world premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival Saturday night to gasp out loud. The film, based on Hillary Jordan’s 2008 novel, had been brutally honest in its depiction of race relations in Mississippi after the end of WWII up to this point, but this visceral incident feels heart-crushingly real. That’s somewhat remarkable considering the film often skirts the line between grounded drama and Southern melodrama a little too close for comfort.
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“Mudbound” focuses on two families: the Southern white McAllans and the African-American Jacksons. The fate of each family becomes intertwined after the former buys the rural farm the latter have been renting acres on. Instead of beginning the film immediately upon the McAllans’ arrival, Reese and co-screenwriter Virgil Williams decide to spend a good amount of screentime setting up the backgrounds of Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke, avoiding prejudicial caricature), his wife Laura McAllan (Carey Mulligan, fantastic as usual), and his younger brother Jamie McAllan (Garrett Hedlund’s best performance in years).
We soon discover Laura was an educated 31-year-old virgin still living with her parents in Tennessee when Henry sweeps her off her feet. She admits in a voiceover that she wasn’t in love with him at first, but he was an option for a husband and family she thought was long lost to her. When the dashing and more cultured Jamie arrives for a visit, even Henry can sense their mutual infatuation. Henry doesn’t have much to worry about, however. After the onset of the Second World War, Jamie enters the military and heads overseas.
Despite the shack, the happy ending Laura thought she’d found with Henry soon becomes something else entirely. Her husband is hardworking and loyal, but starts to make major decisions without consulting her, such as moving their entire family, including their two young girls and his overly crotchety father “Pappy” (Jonathan Banks, unable to avoid caricature), to a farm he’s bought in the Mississippi Delta. Laura is stunned but has little choice in the move, and her patience is remarkable especially after they are forced to live in what amounts to a shack on the farm itself — a dwelling that has no running water and mud, mud and more mud everywhere.
The Jacksons have lived on the farm’s estate for years and have a son, Ronsel (an impressive Jason Mitchell), who is also off to fight in the war. When Hap (Rob Morgan, full of quiet confidence) isn’t preaching at their small local congregation, he and his other children tend to their fields while the family matriarch, Florence (Mary J. Blige at her best), divides her time as a midwife and taking care of their significantly larger family. Hap and Florence are close to saving enough for a nest egg to buy their own farm, but the arrival of the McAllans change all that.
Even though he’s lived in other parts of the South, Henry is, at his core, a racist good ol’ boy who treats Hap and Florence as though they work for him even though they are just his tenants. He constantly intimidates Hap and forces Florence to take a job helping Laura with her daughters even though it’s the last thing she wants to do. Florence had always promised herself she’d raise her own remaining children, and what Henry insists on is basically a vestige of slavery.
When the war ends, both Jamie and Ronsel return home, causing simmering tensions between the two families to bubble to the surface. Both veterans end up bonding over their shared experiences of wartime and forge a genuine friendship. When Pappy, who is even more old-school racist than Henry, finds out a secret Ronsel has hidden from his own family, the entire film takes that aforementioned shocking turn.
This is Rees’ first theatrical effort since 2011’s “Pariah” brought her to industry prominence, but stylistically it owes much more to another period piece she helmed, 2015’s HBO movie “Bessie.” Like that biopic, it’s also 2 hours and 12 minutes, and if there is any universal criticism of “Mudbound,” it’s that it’s simply too long. That can be a common refrain from audiences and reviewers alike about 99% of the motion pictures made either independently or by Hollywood, but in this case it may be accurate. Reese and Williams weave a purposeful narrative tapestry that, while epic in scope, often feels like it’s veering in simply too many directions — so much so that you may become conscious of the plot lines while watching the film itself.
“Mudbound” soars thanks to the impressive performances of the ensemble cast and, notably, Rees’ intent on depicting the harsh reality of this pre-Civil Rights era, warts and all. That was one of the strengths of Nate Parker’s “The Birth Of A Nation,” which debuted at the festival a year ago, but in this case Rees’ deft touch allows it to resonate even more than that one-time Oscar contender. “Mudbound” was inspired by stories of Jordan’s family, so much of it is conjecture, but how people were treated and discriminated against in the film is historically accurate. Rees understands the impact of these moments in the context of contemporary cinema, and how she harness its dramatic power is a testament to her distinctive skills as a filmmaker. The cumulative result will likely haunt you for hours or days to come. And that’s absolutely worth the journey it takes to get there. [B+]
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