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'Mudbound' portrays two families' struggles in rich, rewarding drama

“Mudbound” — ★ ★ ★ ★

“Mudbound,” Dee Rees' sprawling World War II-era drama, plays like great literature on the screen.

Adapted by Rees and fellow screenwriter Virgil Williams from a novel by Hillary Jordan, “Mudbound” is a big movie, about big emotions and ideas, which Rees evokes and explores through an extraordinarily rich tapestry of atmosphere, physical setting and sensitive, subtle performances.

Put most simply, “Mudbound” is about two families working the same patch of land in the Mississippi Delta. Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke), a comer with a restless sense of ambition and a demure wife named Laura (Carey Mulligan), takes possession of his plot while his brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) is off fighting in the war.

He brings Laura, along with his angry father (Jonathan Banks), to a godforsaken farm where he's convinced his fortunes lie. The McAllans' neighbors, the Jacksons, have been there longer: Their patriarch, Hap (Rob Morgan), is a laconic, knowing descendant of enslaved laborers who for generations have “worked this land that would never be theirs.”

Hap is married to Florence, portrayed in an astonishing performance by Mary J. Blige. The Jacksons' son Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) is also in Europe fighting; when he and Jamie return, they discover a kinship in shared trauma all the more meaningful for Ronsel, having just helped liberate a continent, only to return to a homeland mired in Jim Crow racism.

Narrated by each character in shifting turns, “Mudbound” presents a fascinating exercise in perspective and narrative focus, weaving in and out of the two families' stories and the constantly changing dynamics of dominance and dependence, all set against a backdrop of poverty and the unforgiving forces of nature.

Rees has said she set out to make an “old-fashioned” movie, and she's done just that, allowing her story to unspool at a refreshingly deliberate pace and her characters to find their own footing.

Although Jamie and Ronsel's friendship gives “Mudbound” the wings of hope, it's Laura and Florence's uneasy relationship that grounds it in a fascinating reality: Rarely have the finely calibrated alliances, betrayals and subterfuges between white women and women of color been so subtly addressed and drawn out. “Mudbound” is the kind of juicy multicharacter saga that can be enjoyed on its own emotionally affecting, sometimes melodramatic terms. But it's also an exceptionally sophisticated primer on the unseen biases, blind spots, self-mythologies and outright lies that have been passed down over centuries, creating the bubbles of misunderstandings and erasures that vex American culture today.

“Mudbound” is an eloquent, often painful, reminder of William Faulkner's observation that the past is never really past. But Rees isn't content simply to diagnose a punishing, self-perpetuating cycle: Thiss is a film buoyed by humanism that feels chastening, liberating and healing, all at the same time.

• • •

Starring: Carey Mulligan, Mary J. Blige, Jason Clarke, Rob Morgan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Mitchell, Jonathan Banks

Directed by: Dee Rees

Other: A Netflix release. Rated R for violence, language and nudity. 134 minutes

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