By Lindsey Bahr, Film Writer
PARK CITY, Utah (AP) --Director Dee Rees wanted to get to the big questions in her enthralling period epic "Mudbound." Specifically: What is it to be a citizen and what is it to fight for a country that doesn't fight for you? The film, which premiered Saturday night at the Sundance Film Festival, had audiences raving and some already speculating about Oscar chances.
Based on Hillary Jordan's 2008 novel "Mudbound," chronicles the lives of two families in the WWII-era South – one white and one black, and the complicated intersectionality of their paths. There's the McAllans, Laura (Carey Mulligan), her husband Henry (Jason Clarke), his brother Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) and their father Pappy (Jonathan Banks), and the Jacksons, Florence (Mary J. Blige), her husband Hap (Rob Morgan) and their son Ronsel (Jason Mitchell).
They're tied together by a rental agreement – the Jackson's rent their land and home from the McAllans – and the deeply complicated racial relationships in the segregated South in which Henry can demand help from Hap at any moment and Pappy can insist that Ronsel exit the local store from the back entrance.
It's a sprawling and deeply American story about women, men, race and personhood that defies a simple summary.
"It's not didactic, it's not preachy," Rees said. "The thing I love about it is it's multiple points of view."
Both Jamie and Ronsel go off to fight in WWII, where Jamie's once shiny life becomes clouded by the horrors of war and alcohol. Ronsel finds freedom and acceptance that he'd never had in the U.S. embodied in his appointment to Sergeant status and a relationship with a German girl. But back at home, nothing has changed.
"I wanted to juxtapose the battle at home versus the battle abroad with the battle at home sometimes being even bloodier than the battle abroad – to show these two families fighting on the front lines," Rees said, whose grandfathers both fought in wars, one in WWII and one in Korea.
"Both went away and came back and both didn't quite get what they should have gotten," she said.
Rees, who directed "Pariah" and the HBO movie "Bessie," found in the story a deep resonance with her grandmother too. She integrated images and truths from her grandmother's life in the Louisiana into the story, like how she wanted to be a stenographer and not a sharecropper (one of the Jackson children declares this her dream) and how she remembered as a child being pulled on the back of a cotton sack.
Blige, who is earning raves for her subtle and deeply powerful performance as the Jackson family matriarch, also had a grandmother who grew up in the South in Savannah, Georgia. She channeled her to embody Florence.
"She was so strong and silent. She never really said a lot, but when she said something it meant something … She planted her own food, she killed her own chickens, she killed her own cows. (She) and my grandfather were Hap and Florence," Blige said. "Southern people are really all about love, and that's what I took. I'm born and raised in the Bronx in New York, and as a child I went down South every summer so I saw my grandmother give love. I was raised with 'yes ma'am' and 'no ma'am.' "
Though it's been less than a day, so far the response has been rapturous. The audience at the premiere gave Rees and the cast a long standing ovation, and subsequent screenings have elicited similar praise. "Mudbound" does not yet have distribution, but it is expected to be one of the Festival's hottest properties, and, one that people will be talking about long after Sundance comes to a close.
AP Entertainment Reporter Ryan Pearson contributed from Park City, Utah.
“Heretic” and “Maria” Set As Red Carpet Premieres At AFI Fest
The American Film Institute (AFI) has announced that Heretic, the psychological thriller starring Hugh Grant, and Maria, based on the life of opera singer Maria Callas starring Angelina Jolie, will round out the Red Carpet Premieres section at this year’s AFI Fest. The Heretic Gala Screening will take place on Thursday, October 24, and the Maria Gala Screening will be held on Saturday, October 26. The complete Red Carpet Premieres section includes the world premieres of Music By John Williams, Robert Zemeckis’ Here, Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl and Clint Eastwood’s Juror #2. All Red Carpet Premieres will take place at the historic TCL Chinese Theatre. The full lineup for AFI Fest 2024 will be unveiled on October 1.
“At the heart of AFI Fest is an unwavering dedication to celebrating the best in global cinema--together,” said Bob Gazzale, AFI president and CEO. “We look forward to uniting artists and audiences once again to be inspired by the art form in a powerful sense of community.”
Heretic follows two young missionaries (Sophie Thatcher and Chloe East) who are forced to prove their faith when they knock on the wrong door and are greeted by a diabolical Mr. Reed (portrayed by Grant), becoming ensnared in his deadly game of cat-and-mouse. The film is directed by Scott Beck and Bryan Woods and produced by Stacey Sher, Beck, Woods, Julia Glausi and Jeanette Volturno. The film will be released nationwide by A24 on November 8.
Directed by Pablo Larraín, Maria presents a tumultuous and beautiful depiction of one of the world’s most renowned artists and reimagines the legendary soprano in her final days in Paris, as Callas (Jolie)... Read More