Atrailer has finally landed for the biggest hit out of Sundance 2017, Dee Rees’ “Mudbound.” The drama is set in the rural American South during World War II, and the spot kicks off with two vets bonding over their experiences on the battlefield.
We see Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) — who returned home just weeks prior — collapsing on a busy road and staying on the ground when he mistakes a loud noise coming from a car for an attack. He’s offered a hand by Ronsel (Jason Mitchell), who assures him that it’s alright. “They say it stops eventually,” Ronsel says, seemingly referencing PTSD.
Later in the trailer, Ronsel is told by a loved one, “You just come back. Come all the way back.” But neither men can shake the war or the scars it’s left them with, and their shared experiences lead to an unlikely bond in the Jim Crow South.
“Mudbound” tells the “epic story of two families pitted against one another by a ruthless social hierarchy, yet bound together by the shared farmland of the Mississippi Delta,” according to its official synopsis. The film “follows the McAllan family, newly transplanted from the quiet civility of Memphis and unprepared for the harsh demands of farming. Despite the grandiose dreams of Henry (Jason Clarke), his wife Laura (Carey Mulligan) struggles to keep the faith in her husband’s losing venture. Meanwhile, Hap and Florence Jackson (Rob Morgan, Mary J. Blige) — sharecroppers who have worked the land for generations — struggle bravely to build a small dream of their own despite the rigidly enforced social barriers they face.” Both families are welcoming home loved ones from the war — Jamie and Ronsel.
Rees’ follow-up to her Emmy-winning TV movie “Bessie” scored raves from critics and the biggest deal out of Sundance this January. She won the John Cassavetes Award at the 2012 Independent Spirit Awards for “Pariah,” her first narrative feature. The semi-autobiographical drama centers on a lesbian teenager. “I started the movie when I was going through my own coming out process,” Rees told us. “I was reading a lot of Audre Lorde and listening to Nina Simone, but Audre Lorde was who I latched on to and followed her life journey. I could really relate to her experiences about fitting in and always being the ‘other.’”
“If I were a white guy who had done ‘Pariah,’ my next film would have been huge,” Rees recently observed. According to Variety, even after the success of “Pariah,” “Bessie,” and “Mudbound,” she still has to “fight to get her movies financed and distributed.” “I do think there’s a different trajectory,” she acknowledged. “Films are talked about differently. It’s like a film by an independent black director gets talked about for who made it, not for what the film is.”
“Mudbound” will launch on Netflix and in select theaters November 17.
