Mudbound is a heavy and brutal drama about how racism affects a white family and a Black family working side by side as farmers in WWII Mississippi. It is a little long, at nearly two and a half hours long, but is a tragic and sad story to watch.
I especially appreciated how writer/director Dee Rees characterized the strife of the Black woman as caregiver to her white boss’s children, being expected to be their live-in caregiver while being away from her own children. Mary J. Blige was excellent in showing the pain of being pushed to agree to an unfair deal made to support her family financially while sacrificing caring for her own kids to be there for a white family’s needs.
The film presented not only how devastating racism was to the Black family, but also how racism and classism infected the white family, as they had a hard time moving down from their middle class status to be rural farmers and kept expecting the Black family to be their support at every call, not thinking about how they were more equals than different in their social class.
I really liked Rees’ breakout indie Pariah from several years ago, about a teen girl struggling to come out as a lesbian to her conservative mother, and was happy to see her back again with a successful film. This is a sad movie to watch, but very realistic and honest.
Pottersville is a Christmas indie movie directed by Seth Henrikson starring Michael Shannon as a small town general store owner who, after reeling from the shock of his wife cheating on him, gets drunk and puts on a gorilla suit and runs around town at night hollering, only to be mistaken as Bigfoot and become a local media sensation, bringing tourism dollars to the struggling small town.
It is an offbeat movie, and I had my doubts about Shannon being able to convincingly play a nice and decent person, given that he has a crazy intensity in nearly all of his roles. But he dialed back the crazy to play a mild-mannered and likable guy who just wanted to make the townspeople happy, and he holds off on revealing the truth because he likes that “Bigfoot” is bringing everyone together in a fun community spirit.
The film has a stellar cast for a small holiday film: Shannon, Judy Greer, Ron Perlman, Thomas Lennon, Christina Hendricks, and Ian McShane. The movie is nice to watch for its funny story and talented cast.
No comments:
Post a Comment