Now Available on Netflix
Directed By: Dee Rees
Starring: Carey Mulligan, Jason Mitchell, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, Mary J. Blige
These are the Netflix original movies so far: Beasts of No Nation, The Ridiculous 6, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny, Pee-wee’s Big Holiday, Special Correspondents, The Do-Over, The Fundamentals of Caring, Rebirth, Tallulah, XOXO, ARQ, The Siege of Jadotville, Mascots, I Am the Pretty Thing That Lives in the House, 7 Años, True Memoirs of an International Assassin, Mercy, Spectral, Barry, Coin Heist, Clinical, Take the 10, iBoy, Imperial Dreams, Girlfriend’s Day, I Don’t Feel at Home in This World Anymore, Burning Sands, Deidra & Laney Rob a Train, The Most Hated Woman in America, The Discovery, Win It All, Sandy Wexler, Sand Castle, Tramps, Small Crimes, Handsome, Blame!, War Machine, Shimmer Lake, You Get Me, Okja, To the Bone, The Incredible Jessica James, Naked, What Happened to Monday, Death Note, Little Evil, First They Killed My Father, Gerald’s Game, Our Souls at Night, The Meyerowitz Stories, The Babysitter, 1922, Wheelman, The Killer, A Christmas Prince, and now Mudbound. Some are better than others are (as some are Adam Sandler movies), but it does not seem like any would be a five star movie. Only with this latest movie does a Netflix movie seem like it is trying to be a classic.
Early on in Mudbound, the newest and highest profile Netflix movie, Carey Mulligan’s character Laura McAllan says in narration that she is around the titular mud so much that she started to “dream in brown.” Never before has muck been so viscerally felt. Trying to find the best onomatopoeia for the characters lifelessly trudging through the muddy gloop of these Mississippi fields – maybe “glurmpt”?
The film centers around two families trying to eke out a living on a farm around World War II – the white family is the McAllans: engineer Henry McAllan (Clarke) has a wild hair to buy a farm and be a farmer, and takes his wife Laura (a Tennessee spinster before Henry marries her) and their family to Mississippi, along with his supernaturally racist father Pappy (Johnathan Banks). When they arrive, they meet the Jackson family – the black sharecropper family led by the tireless farmer/preacher Hap (Rob Morgan), the matriarch Florence (the queen Mary J. Blige) and their children. It is business as usual in racist Mississippi as Henry works the Jacksons to the point past abuse, Florence and Hap try to manage a life, Laura does nothing, and Pappy is terrible. The hope for the next generation is Henry’s brother Jamie (Hedlund), who enlists in the Air Force, and Florence’s son Ronsel (Mitchell), who enlists in the tank division in Europe. They are easily the most electric characters – less mired in the certainty of lifelong misery than their families.
I was surprised how much of this movie reflects World War II and the after effects of that war. The shots of fighter pilots and tank assaults do not try to compete with Dunkirk’s budget, but they are effective enough. The best part of these scenes is the daily life in the military, with Jamie in the barracks, or Ronsel in love with a Belgian woman where he is stationed. They both come back to Mississippi and are immediately drawn to each other. The instigating event for these two is Ronsel observing Jamie’s “shellshock” from the war when a car backfires, and he hits the ground. The people in the street do not know what to do, but Ronsel comes up to him and offers his hand. For both of them, the worst part is not their memories of the war (they both miss it), it is coming back and Mississippi staying the same. Ronsel says “Over there, I was a liberator. People lined up in the streets waiting for us. Throwing flowers and cheering. And here, I’m just another n***er pushing a plow.” It is hard not to feel helpless after hearing that.
The other surprise for me was how much narration dominates the movie. I may have lost count, but the movie has at least five narrators. I’ll rank them: 1) Ronsel – dynamic and captivating every time, 2) Florence – stately, graceful and matter-of-fact, 3) Henry – a despicable guy in some respects, but brutally pragmatic, 4) Hap – has a wonderful, gritty voice, 5) Laura – Carey Mulligan tries on another sad girl, 6) Jamie – he’s Jamie, 7) Pappy – a more virulently racist Foghorn Leghorn. I am actually not sure if some of those are real now – but the narration is distracting. They say a rule of screenwriting is to show, not tell – maybe it’s my issue, as I find unnecessary narration distracting. It seems like there were some lines from the Hilary Jordan book this is based on that could not fit in a scene that they wanted in the movie anyway.
Nevertheless, there are parts that really, really work in this. The movie balances some of its “miserablist” tendencies (where basically the worst thing that can happen, happens constantly) with the natural levity found in family – the Jacksons bust on each other when Ronsel sneaks back in after the war and have such an easy grace and humor. In addition, the rapport found between Ronsel and Drunk Jamie is probably the best chemistry in the movie. Jamie is kind of a cartoon character after awhile, but Ronsel is great. Easily, the greatest actor and greatest performer in this movie is Jason Mitchell, who was also amazing as Eazy-E in Straight Outta Compton. He is just a natural. Mary J. Blige is great as Florence Jackson, but the pre-hype was a little overblown, in my opinion, as she just doesn’t have that much to do in this film, which is disappointing. The movie is at its best when it is revealing the commonality between these different people, white and black, old and young, all poor though, and then revealing the gap that still remains.
In the end, this is the first Netflix movie I’ve felt that’s really gone for it. However, it ends up juggling so much (with some working, and some not working), that the result is kind of an impressive mess. But it is an impressive film, and an impressive accomplishment. A mixed bag, in my opinion.
Is it Watchlist-Worthy? In the end… Yes.
