Mudbound
Netflix, from Friday 17 November
This Netflix film – available to watch on the streaming service or in Curzon cinemas – is picking up serious awards-season buzz. It’s adapted by writer/director Dee Rees (Pariah, Bessie) from the bestselling novel by Hillary Jordan about two families, one white, one black, living in the same rural town in the Deep South, and both affected by WW2. The story takes a while to kick in, and the scenes move around in time and location, but soon it becomes clear that this is an epic, finely detailed and thoroughly authentic account of contrasting lives. We meet Henry (Jason Clarke), who convinces his urban sweetheart Laura (Carey Mulligan) to marry him and move to a fairly bleak farm, while his brother (Garrett Hedlund) goes off to war. Alongside them are Hap (Rob Morgan) and Florence Jackson (Mary J Blige – barely recognisable and great), and their offspring, who have to deal with the grim reality of farm labour and the bigoted segregation laws of the South. It all builds to a stunningly powerful climax. HHHH Boyd Hilton