Watch This: Trailer for Mudbound

Mudbound is the latest from director Dee Rees. It’s the story of two families – one black, one white – bound uneasily together on the muddy farmland of the Mississippi Delta during the Jim Crow era.

The film follows two men as they return from World War II. Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) and Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) bond over their shared experiences in the war. The return home is very different for Ronsel and Jamie, however.

Others in the cast include Carey Mulligan, Mary J. Blige, Jonathan Banks, and Jason Clarke. The film is based on a novel by Hillary Jordan. Rees and Virgil Williams wrote the screenplay.

Previous films from Dee Rees have been outstanding. They include Bessie and Pariah as well as some directing in episodic television. I’m expecting Mudbound to be a significant film and potential award winner.

Mudbound premiered at Sundance, where Netflix purchased it for $12.5 million, making it the largest deal to come out of Sundance. That says Oscar hopeful from Netflix to me.

Here’s the film synopsis:

Set in the post-WWII South, Mudbound is an epic story of two families pitted against a barbaric social hierarchy and an unrelenting landscape as they simultaneously fight the battle at home and the battle abroad. The film is about friendship, unacknowledged heritage and the unending struggle for and against the land. Newly transplanted from the quiet civility of Memphis, the McAllan family is underprepared and overly hopeful for Henry’s (Jason Clarke) grandiose farming dreams. Laura (Carey Mulligan) struggles to keep the faith in her husband’s losing venture, meanwhile, for Hap (Rob Morgan) and Florence Jackson (Mary J. Blige), whose families have worked the land for generations, every day is a losing venture as they struggle bravely to build some small dream of their own. The war upends both families’ plans as their returning loved ones, Jamie (Garrett Hedlund) and Ronsel (Jason Mitchell) forge a fast, uneasy friendship that challenges them all.

Mudbound will premier on Netflix and in select theaters November 17.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yx6bzqdQbKs