Mudbound
2/5
Directed by: Dee Rees
Rated: R
What is a person's worth? Is it the land they own? Perhaps it is how big their family is, or how many people they are able to pack into their extended family. Maybe it is the color of their skin. It could be how many medals they can proudly wear on their chest. Then again, a person's worth could be the same as everyone else, and it does not matter what we do as much as why we did it. In the end all our bodies are going to the same place. Whether we are a father a mother or a brother, a war hero or a dirty farmer, or whether we may appear as different as black from white we are all set and bound to that same fate to find our bodies six feet under thick brown soil. We are all mud bound.
Director Dee Rees' Mudbound depicts the harsh and near unforgiving life out in the cotton fields and farm lands of rural Mississippi in the 1940's. Everywhere audiences look they are sure to see dirt, worn down homes, toiled over land and large pools of mud. This captivating scenery is captured in the lens of cinematographer Rachel Morrison. She brings out the various shades of brown in the ground's topography, the black in the pitch dark night sky, the white in every cloud that scrapes across the heavens and the never-ending blue that surrounds the Earth in an infinite caring sky. Morrison's grasp of the camera goes beyond her establishing shots, but also extends to her scene work. Her rich and descriptive shots often tell the relations between characters through her sense of framing and juxtaposition alone.
Mudbound's most stirring aspect is its wide cast of characters. Carey Mulligan plays a desperate house wife, Jason Clarke plays her stiff necked husband, Mary J. Blige embodies the loving mother who works as their midwife, Rob Morgan plays Blige's character's strong willed husband, Jason Mitchell is their son and a World War II pilot, Garett Hedlund is another veteran and the stiff necked husband's brother and Jonathan Banks plays the role of Clarke and Hedlund's character's father and Mulligan's father in law. As Mudbound does not feature one star character, protagonist or narrator, at one time or another most every one of these characters will appear as the movie's star, play out the role of protagonist, and narrate their story the whole way through it. This, however, does not make all the characters endearing, but rather it makes them all seem like they are fighting for screen time and who can get the audience to cry first.
Mudbound's inconsistent pacing and poor integration of its characters can make some audiences question whether they are watching a scene with a new character or a scene with characters from Mudbound's main cast. It is not until halfway through this movie that audiences will understand characters' goals, intentions and familial relations. After it feels as if this movie's story has finally begun, characters rapidly develop and the choices and actions they take quickly lead them to what appears to be an inevitable climax. Though the climax is worthwhile, it does not make the whole movie's experience rewarding. This, along with the movie's uninteresting score, off-putting narration and the story's unsubstantial beginning, makes Mudbound a decent movie but ultimately one that might not be impactful or memorable.
Verdict: Director Dee Rees' Mudbound is a story about family, life and its inevitable end, but despite its well crafted scenery and story driven shots this movie's characters can get muddled and its story can feel stuck.
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