Mudbound *** (2017, Garrett Hedlund, Carey Mulligan, Jason Clarke) – Movie Review

Co-writer/ director Dee Rees’s 2017 Mudbound is extremely worthy and exceptionally well made and finely acted. It is a serious-minded work that deals with an urgent topic of race hatred and is an Oscar contender type movie. But as an evening out it is a dreary and depressing experience, a real downer. It is nominated for four Oscars – Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Achievement in Cinematography and Best Original Song (‘Mighty River’).

Even the song is dreary and depressing. But there is no doubt that the cinematography is outstanding and thus Rachel Morrison deserves her place in history when she became the first woman ever to be Oscar nominated Best Achievement in Cinematography. This is a brilliantly stylish looking film.

Garrett Hedlund gives the film’s best performance as the hero, Jamie McAllan, Perhaps in part because he has the best and most sympathetic role. Hedlund and Jason Clarke (as Henry McAllan) play brothers who return home to work on their family farm in rural Mississippi after fighting in World War Two. Now they face two new battles – against the local racists and to adjusting to civvy life on the farm and in a backward small-town community after the war.

Carey Mulligan plays the cute and pretty Laura McAllan, who has married Henry McAllan, but has eyes for the handsome Hedlund. There is plenty of the Laura role, but it turns out not to be much of a part for Mulligan to get her teeth into. It is way too one-dimensional.

Talking of one-dimensional, Jonathan Banks has a lip-smacking field day as the main villain, the boys’ appalling racist dad, Pappy McAllan, a member of the local ku klux klan. One-dimensional it may be, but Banks makes the villain memorable. However, when the ku klux klan plot kicks in, I just wanted to leave the cinema and go home, as the feeling of being depressed turns to feeling suicidal. To be fair, that is the film’s point, it is sickening.

Despite being the son of a rabid racist, and maybe because of it, Hedlund’s Jamie befriends the Jackson family (Rob Morgan, Mary J Blige, Jason Mitchell), eventually with tragic results. The film’s success depends on full understanding of the characters, but Jamie character is all a bit too saintly and perhaps needs a reality check in the script.

On the other hand Clarke’s Henry character seems much more in touch with what must have been the reality, existing in that no man’s land between Jamie and Pappy. Clarke has a much more interesting, ambiguous character to play, and of course plays it well because he is a very good actor. So it is unfair that all the attention will turn to the super-nice Hedlund. But there it is. He is the hero and Clarke is the semi-villain.

I found it hard to believe much of the story – at least as presented here in the unsubtle and manipulative screenplay by Virgil Williams and Dee Rees based on a novel by Hillary Jordan. The extremes of its violence and sentimentality are really too hard to take. So, as a serious look at racism in the era, Mudbound just doesn’t work properly, and, as an entertainment, it just isn’t entertaining.

There is also the strong feeling that we have been here before, trodden this same ground quite a few times earlier. Like the 1940s era, it feels stale and outdated. The film provides no urgent reason to go back in time to what must have been an appalling place for a lot of people. Or are we simply trying to cheer ourselves up with a posh piece of escapism by showing that the past was even worse than our crappy present era?

Mudbound got a standing ovation at its premiere at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, and certainly there are many aspects of it you want to applaud, not least Hedlund’s performance and Rachel Morrison’s cinematography.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com