Mudbound

Mudbound was not an easy film to watch, particularly in the second half of the movie. Man’s inhumanity to man is how my husband described it. It is still a very worthwhile film if you can stand the heartache.

The story takes place around the time of World War II in the Mississippi River delta. Henry McAllan (Jason Clarke) marries Laura (Carey Mulligan) late in life, and takes her and their two young girls, and his father Pappy (Jonathan Banks) to a farm he has purchased deep in the south. They interact daily with the black family living on the land, who pick the cotton and do everything else a farmer does. This place is truly mud bound, with torrential rains nearly flooding their land, and making the crops tentative every year.

Henry’s brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) has been in the air force during the war and arrives at the farm, as does Ronsel Jackson (Jason Mitchell), the son of the sharecroppers, Hap (Rob Morgan) and Florence (Mary J. Blige). They strike up a friendship despite their differences in color, having a mutual understanding of the death and hardships they survived in Europe.

The South being what it is, disgusting white men take it upon themselves to punish Ronsel, bringing in members of the Ku Klux Klan for really degrading torture. They drag Jamie over to where the torture is taking place and he has to decide Ronsel’s fate.

It was horrible to watch this, but I never turn away from what’s on the screen. The story was really well thought out, and told from the viewpoints of several characters. Carey Mulligan does a fantastic job as the reluctant yet desperate wife of Henry. She married him not wanting to be an old maid at 31. Even though they try to make her appear homely, she is anything but. When she smiles, a radiance comes over her that can melt anyone’s heart.

Mary J. Blige was nominated for Best Supporting Actress at the Golden Globes, as was the song Mighty River that she sings (neither took the award). You wouldn’t know Ms. Blige to look at her; she gets into the character of Florence so deeply. All the actors did a fine job, even the ones we hate. The film is rated R for some disturbing violence, brief language and nudity.

We watched it on streaming Netflix. We still need to keep telling these stories. Ronsel was treated better in Europe than he is in the US. We should remember this disgusting part of American history so perhaps the current bigotry can be called out for what it is, and shown where it can lead if allowed to be taken to extremes. America may have a history of slavery, injustice and cruelty, but it doesn’t mean we have to allow it today. Hate crimes need to be punished severely. I don’t want to go on and on here, but the only things I’m intolerant of are hate, cruelty, and intolerance.