Mudbound is as relevant today as it was after World War II. Director Dee Rees (Bessie, Pariah) and Writer Virgil Williams have created a masterpiece on film detailing disturbing racial attitudes that still exist not only in the South, but throughout the United States.
Dee Rees found out about Hilary Jordan’s novel from writer Virgil Williams who adapted a script from the book. Williams told us at the Austin Film Festival that he wrote the story and Rees re-wrote it. They never worked together in the same room but are of the same voice. Rees wanted an old fashioned movie with a sprawling ensemble and used old lenses to get a warm look for the film.
Williams says the book spoke to him for many reasons. One, because he thinks it speaks as much today about race as it did then. It also reminded him of his own family. Both his grandfathers fought in WWII. One in a Black unit and the other passed for White and was in a white unit.
Mudbound follows two families; one White, one Black, trying to make a living in the mud bound South as sharecroppers. They each have a family member who goes off to war. The performances of this perfectly cast ensemble are powerful. The characters are well developed and intense.
The film opens with a scene to peek your interest. Two brothers are digging their father’s grave showing the tentative, but strong relationship between them. The major portion of the film is flashbacks showing how they got to this grave.
Jason Clarke is Henry McAllen. His brother Jamie is a hard drinking, good-hearted charmer, but often at odds with the rest of the family. He’s into the bottle to dull the PTSD after the horrors of piloting bombers over Germany in The War. We get introduced to Laura (Carey Mulligan, TheGreat Gatsby) before she and Henry marry and there is a connection there.
Henry sees opportunity farming in Mississippi and literally drags his Laura and their two daughters, along with his despicably racist father, Pappy, (Jonathan Banks) to live with them. Pappy is unbearable and always own conflict with Jamie.
Henry rents out some of their land to sharecropper Hap (Rob Morgan, Stranger Things) and his wife Florence Jackson (Mary J. Blige in her first acting role). Blige is incredible as the emotional rock for her family. Many times she does not say a word, but still shows so effectively what’s going on in her mind and in her heart. Blige, known for her music, says that it helped her acting and so did going through a divorce.
Morgan shows Hap feels deeply, too, but he remains stoically stone-faced. That’s the way it had to be for Black men at the time. Their son, Ronsel, played by Jason Mitchell (Straight Outta Compton) also goes off to war and fights heroically in a tank battalion in Germany. While in Europe he sees how Black soldiers are treated like any other American. He falls in love with a German girl and experiences what life could be with total freedom and no color barriers or segregation.
Rees’ favorite scene is where Hap, with a broken leg, has to watch from inside his house as his crop is washed out by a rainstorm. The camera follows his gaze out into the field and doubles back showing the devastated faces of the family and his wife Florence trying not to show disappointment, but she knows all is lost.
Rees and Williams use narration periodically to fill in the gaps and let you know what the characters are thinking. This technique can sometimes show the inability of filmmakers to adequately portray the story or an easy way to expedite it. That’s not the case here. Williams says he surgically lifted some of author Jordan’s exposition into the narrative because it gives insight and allows the characters to reveal their true emotions which they can’t always do on camera.
The color scheme of this wide-ranging epic is decidedly brown. The mud engulfs everything and everyone. There are very few bright, vibrant shots in the entire film. All the characters have their inner truths and secrets which require them to keep a lid on their emotions and desires. Waiting, hoping for some of them to unleash those emotions drives the underlying tension on screen and for the audience.
One pair who do get to unleash their emotions are Jaimie and Ronsel. The black soldier fought for freedom yet now that he’s back home he can’t even use the front door to enter a store. Jamie and Ronsel forge a friendship based on their mutual understanding of how they have been damaged by their wartime experiences. The only time these comrades can laugh and be comforted is when sneak off to share cigarettes and booze. They need each other’s company despite the danger of the KKK seeing them together.
Despite the movie’s languid pace it never feels slow because of the chemistry among all the characters. The McAllen’s inter-family wars contrast to the Jackson’s loving, supportive home. The powerlessness of being Black is portrayed as a fact of life without turning this into a message movie. Except for Pappy and his co-horts, no one is consistently a villain, or a hero. It gets frightening but writer Williams says he changed the end to provide a message of hope after being dragged through the mud for 2 hours.
This is a movie that ought to spark more conversations about the state of race relations in this country. Is it purely an historical work of fiction or does it portray attitudes of race that continue today? They were stuck in the mud, and this film will stick with you.
