I have said before, I believe, that I wish no one felt the need to tell these kinds of stories anymore.

It's a condemnation upon us that our stories have to show a black man save the life of a white man before he even considers a black man a human being. It's a deeper condemnation that this is not only believable, not only likely the extent that was required, but also that these stories still get told, still have resonance, still seem relevant in this world. That Ronsel requires this explanation to make sense of any kindness from Jamie characterizes America. The fact that almost no progress has been made in the 70 years since when this narrative is…

There are a bunch of terrific performances, particularly from Mary J. Blige, Rob Morgan, and Jason Mitchell, but you've gotta sit through a very middling first hour to get to the part where it's worth it. And even when it is worth it, it's just building to the same type of climax any movie like this is building to, where the moral is "wow racism is awful and was a big cultural force in this era."

I'm over watching black pain like this. There's merit to it for sure, but I'm just... exhausted by it. I want more black movies that aren't concerned with delivering a modern-day moral about race in old settings. I want more stories that let black…

This sprawling epic takes place in Mississippi at the onset of WWII, portraying two families, one black, one white, who “share” the same plot of land. The white family has recently purchased the land, which, at one point was taken away from the black family who had worked it for generations, relegating the black family to tenant farming; where the land is rented and then worked by the black family. If the crops are good, the family gets a percentage of the profit, but in most cases this is a subsistence level proposition in which the family will never truly get ahead enough to be able to own the land, or any part of it (as it wouldn't benefit the…

Earnest, humane, but unfocused period piece set against post-War Mississippi. Mudbound is at it's best when exploring the deeply entrenched racism of Jim Crow-era Mississippi. I liked the uneasy relationship of the two families at the center of the story—the naive, white land-owning family on the decline and the black tenant farmer's family with dreams of upward mobility. Their co-dependency and the small negotiations of their fraught relationship creates interesting tension.

But structure, writing, and uneven characters are where the movie fails. Voice-over can be used to great effect. But here, it's deployed clumsily as a kind of emotional shorthand. After heavy narration at first, the film eventually settles in, only to bring it back at random points. And when…

Mudbound envelops one subplot after another, bursting at the seems with stories carrying gravity on their shoulders. Capturing the relationship between two families—one black and one white—these distinguishing streams meets the tide at a precise pinpoint, a scutiny of racism and destitution that manifests itself into an all-encompassing outlook. Sure, racism is not something new to explore in films, but Mudbound, despite its seemingly typecasted period setting, does this with a contrary to what's orthodoxically done. Patience is needed here, for Mudbound doesn't propel its hook firsthand. With seamlessly leaping narratives, Dee Rees leads us through numerous stories, filled with first-rate acting, spread with little details and lyrical overtone, slowly intensifying. A high-risk move indeed, but the outcome is poignantly…