Mudbound (film)


Mudbound is a 2017 American historical drama film directed by Dee Rees and written by Rees and Virgil Williams, based on the 2008 novel of the same name by Hillary Jordan. It stars Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, Jason Mitchell, Jonathan Banks, and Mary J. Blige. The film depicts two World War II veterans – one white, one black – who return to rural Mississippi each to address racism and PTSD in his own way. The film premiered at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival on January 21, 2017, and was released on Netflix and in limited release on November 17, 2017.
Critics praised its screenplay, direction, and the cast's performances and at the 75th Golden Globe Awards received nominations for Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Song. At the 90th Academy Awards, the film earned four nominations: Best Supporting Actress and Best Original Song for Blige, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography, the latter of which made Rachel Morrison the first woman ever nominated in the category. Blige became the first person to ever be nominated for an acting and song award during the same year.

Plot

In Mississippi Delta farm country, Henry McAllan and his younger brother Jamie dig a grave and struggle to lower their deceased Pappy's coffin into it. When the Jacksons, a black sharecropper family, pass by in a wagon, Henry asks the father, Hap, for help. Henry seems uncomfortable asking; Hap hesitates to reply.
The film goes back to 1939, when Henry buys a farm outside the fictional town of Marietta, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta and moves there with his wife Laura, with whom he shares a passionless marriage, their daughters, and the virulently racist Pappy. The Jackson family, led by tenant farmer Hap and his wife Florence, work the farm's cotton field and dream of owning their own land one day.
As World War II begins, Jamie and the Jacksons' eldest son, Ronsel, join the Air Force and Army, respectively. Jamie flies bombers and Ronsel commands tanks and falls in love with a white German woman. Both experience severe combat trauma.
Meanwhile, back in Mississippi both families live in poverty, at the edge of disaster. The families support each other out of necessity. The Jacksons' mule has to be put down. Henry offers to share his mule, but exacts half of the Jackson's crop in payment; the Jacksons have no choice but to accept. Florence helps Laura when Laura and Henry's two small daughters are ill with whooping cough, and Laura offers Florence work helping care for her daughters. Hap, who serves as the preacher for the local black community, falls while helping to build a small church, breaking a leg and rendering him unable to work. Laura sneaks money from her husband's safe so Hap can be treated by a doctor.
When the war ends, Ronsel and Jamie return home and realize that they've changed but the local society hasn't. Jamie becomes an alcoholic and suffers from PTSD. Ronsel, accustomed to the relative lack of racism among Europeans, struggles with racism back home. They become aware of each other's difficulties and bond over their war experiences. Ronsel asks why Jamie treats him with respect; Jamie recounts that on a bomber flight a black fighter pilot saved his life. Jamie's drunkenness gets worse and he wakes up from a nightmare with the car partially submerged in a lake. Henry leaves on a trip and tells Jamie to leave the farm before he returns.
Ronsel receives a letter from the German woman with whom he'd been romantically involved during the war. He learns that they had a child together and she wants Ronsel to join them. He shares this with Jamie while riding together in the McAllans' truck. Their truck passes Pappy and Ronsel must hide. Pappy confronts Jamie about seeing him with Ronsel. He yells at Jamie for his drunken behavior and sneers at Laura, claiming she has feelings for Jamie. Later, Ronsel realizes that he lost the letter and photo and runs out to look for it. Pappy finds the letter and photo in the truck. Laura confronts Jamie as he packs to leave, and they make love.
As Ronsel searches for his letter, he is ambushed by Pappy and members of the Ku Klux Klan and beaten. Pappy brings Jamie to a barn where the Klan is preparing to kill Ronsel for fathering a child with a white woman. Jamie points a gun at his father in an effort to save his friend and is beaten by members of the Klan. As Jamie is restrained and in pain, he is told to choose Ronsel's punishment for his crime—to lose his eyes, tongue or testicles—or watch Ronsel be put to death. Through the pain, Jamie whispers "tongue" and Ronsel's tongue is cut out. Ronsel is left bound and wounded for his family to find.
Later that night, Jamie wakes Pappy. Pappy had previously belittled Jamie's war awards because he hadn't had to look in the eyes of the people he killed. Jamie looks Pappy in the eye and smothers him with a pillow.
The film returns to the opening scene. The Jacksons appear to be leaving with their meager belongings in the wagon. Hap accedes to Henry's request to help with the coffin and says a prayer over the grave. In a rebuke to Pappy, Hap recites from the Book of Job, verses 14:2-12. As Henry begins to bury his father, Jamie walks away. He approaches the Jacksons' wagon and gives the German woman's envelope to Florence, asking her to give it to Ronsel if she should see him.
Much later, Jamie moves to the city. Ronsel makes his way back to Europe and reunites with the German woman and his son.

Cast

Development on the film was announced on March 21, 2016, with Dee Rees engaged as director and Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke and Jason Mitchell cast in roles. On May 25, Mary J. Blige was added to the cast. On May 31, Jonathan Banks and Rob Morgan were cast, and filming began in New Orleans, Louisiana and post-production started in the United Kingdom by July 2016.

Cinematography

Dee Rees asked Rachel Morrison to focus on "the idea of the American dream vs. the American reality," so Rachel turned to books by Farm Security Administration photographers for reference points regarding color and composition, in particular Dorothea Lange, Arthur Rothstein, Ben Shahn and Walker Evans. Another primary source for her was a Gordon Parks essay in Life magazine in the 1950s called "A Segregation Story" – regarding color that "felt period, but it didn't feel washed-out". Rachel's term for the goal they tried to achieve is "subjective naturalism," which she describes as first of all, real, and then potentially dramatized with light at main plot points – but remaining real throughout. Through that reality, the focus was on the elements in the picture and not the period itself: "The period wasn't a character in this film. The mud was a character, the weather was a character, the house was a character... we were trying to make more of a commentary about just how tough times were through experiences." A. O. Scott in the New York Times on the result: "Rachel... brings the soil, the flora and the weather to life in a way that emphasizes the archaic, elemental power of the story."

Release

Following its 2017 Sundance Film Festival premiere, Mudbound had distribution offers from A24 and Annapurna Pictures. On January 29, 2017, Netflix acquired distribution rights to the film. The film premiered on the streaming platform, as well as began a one-week theatrical release in New York City and Los Angeles, on November 17, 2017.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 97% based on 192 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Mudbound offers a well-acted, finely detailed snapshot of American history whose scenes of rural class struggle resonate far beyond their period setting." On Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 85 out of 100, based on 44 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, praising the cast and direction. Writing for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers also gave the film 3.5 out of 4 stars, praising Blige's performance and Rees' direction, saying: "The director and her cinematographer Rachel Morrison do wonders with the elements that batter the people of every race and social class in the Delta. But it's the storm raging inside these characters that rivets our attention and makes Mudbound a film that grabs you and won't let go."

Accolades