I often talk about
there being two ways to be a quality movie: innovation and effectiveness.
History tends to remember the innovators, but there's nothing wrong with doing
something familiar and doing it well. That's Mudbound. This is a movie
made up of the two most common topics among American history films: World War
II and southern Racism. It even relies heavily on narration. There's all sorts
of forbidden love and friendship. I'm not sure there's a new idea in the movie,
but it's so well made that it really doesn't matter.
It all starts with
an excellent cast. On one side, there's Garrett Hedlund, Carey Mulligan, Jason
Clarke, and Jonathan Banks. On the other, there's Mary J. Blige, Jason
Mitchell, and Rob Morgan. I'll watch anything with Carey Mulligan (and it's not
all because I fancy brunette Brits). Jason Clarke is fine whenever I need a
dirty Patrick Wilson or Matthew Rhys. As I mention any time I see Garrett
Hedlund in a movie, I'm still trying to form an opinion of him other than
"not Charlie Hunnam". Jonathan Banks is really good at playing a
repugnant character. I forget that, because I like him so much in the Breaking
Bad/Better Call Saul universe. Mary J. Blige is getting the most
press for her performance in the film. She's very good, although a part of me
thinks she's getting extra-praise for successfully not playing Mary J. Blige,
since she's mostly known for singing. It's kind of like when people wouldn't
stop talking about Mariah Carey's transformation in Precious. Rob Morgan must
have an exclusive deal with Netflix, because just this year, he's been in this,
Stranger Things, Godless, and their Marvel shows (The Punisher,
The Defenders). I was worried that Jason Mitchell, so good as Easy E in
Straight Outta Compton, would have trouble fitting into this WWII
setting. It turns out that fear was unfounded, because he is quite good in this
too.
Perhaps the cast
was a little too good, or rather, too large. The story is pretty diffuse. There
are a lot of stories to juggle and there are times when the screenplay
struggles to keep all the balls in the air. The relationship between Mitchell
and Hedlund is the core of the movie, but the movie has to lay a lot of
groundwork first. While the movie is mostly about Mulligan and Clarke and Blige
and Morgan at the beginning, they fall to the background for much of the end. I
think the ideal version of this would be a mini-series. As a two hour film, Dee
Rees makes it work as well as possible.
Finally, I have a
small gripe. The Ku Klux Klan makes the story way too easy, right? It's one
thing for someone to be racist. You can question how resolute they are. Maybe
there will be a character turn at some point. There's some ambiguity to it. As
soon as someone puts the white sheet over his head, it's over. He become
generic evil. It kind of takes away the agency of the individual in favor of
the group. When the Klan got involved, I got a lot less interested in where the
movie was going. It's like the message shifted to "Only this select group
of white people are the problem in the South" rather than, "there's
this systemic problem that's pretty complex". And, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe
in that era the Klan was super prevalent and behind all the awful things. It
sure felt like a narrative shortcut though: a way to make the issue not just
black and white, but black and sheet white.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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