Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Mudbound
2017
***
Director: Dee Rees
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, Jason Mitchell, Mary J. Blige, Rob Morgan, Jonathan Banks

The McAllans (white) and the Jacksons (black) farm the same land in the unforgiving Mississippi Delta. Jamie McAllan and Ronsel Jackson both return home from World War II in Europe and struggle to readjust to their former lives. This well-acted period drama tells a classic tale of you can never go home again. The returning war heroes must deal with PTSD, which is something new, and racism, which has always been there. Dee Rees creates a wonderful and thoroughly believable sense of place and time, but the world she paints and the characters she inhabits it with are not only racially but also dramatically black and white, without a hint of grey. Based on Hillary Jordan's novel.