“Mudbound” premiered to rave reviews at Sundance and it is incredible.
Sundance
This review originally ran January 22,2017, as part of our Sundance coverage. With Mudbound making its premiere on Netflix on November 17, we’re running it again.
Every year at Sundance, there’s that one movie that becomes the movie everyone talks about. And if you’re here and haven’t seen that movie yet, you are subconsciously shunned by others. You are no longer allowed to participate in the whole, “What is your favorite so far?,” game because you have to preface the answer by admitting you haven’t seen The Big Movie yet. This was me for the 15 hours between when I missed the Mudbound premiere on Saturday evening until I saw it on Sunday morning. And, oh yes, people were correct: This is the movie of Sundance. Like Manchester by the Sea last year, it’s the movie we’ll still be talking at this point in 2018.
In a perfect world, I would have more time to ponder Dee Rees’ Mudbound before writing about it, but good Lord, we know this isn’t a perfect world.
What sticks out to me the most (in a movie with a lot that sticks out) is the relationship between Garrett Hedlund’s Jamie McAllan and Jason Mitchell’s Ronsel Jackson. Both are World War II veterans retiring to Mississippi, their lives changed forever from events during the war.
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Sometimes I get tricked into reading reviews that aren’t by Vince but you can tell right away cause the other authors use the dumb kind of hyperbole like “We’ll be hearing about this all this year and next year.” You know how Mike Ryan also said about “Birth of a Nation” which we did hear a lot about.. just not what he meant.
Yeah, I did a double-take when I saw him claim that MBTS was the movie of Sundance last year.
I thought that was Val Kilmer for a second in that picture.
