Period drama blends stories of families during WWII

“Mudbound” compacts a lot of story — handed off between no fewer than six narrators — into a little more than two hours.

So much of it works, with an unusually deft balance between its African-American and white characters, that you wish co-writer and director Dee Rees could stretch it to a three- or fourhour adaptation of Hillary Jordan’s 2008 debut novel.

Nonetheless, “Mudbound” really is something — a vividly acted, dramatically rich depiction, harsh and beautiful, of life and death in 1940s Mississippi. The film follows two families of intertwined destinies.

It’s a shame that Netflix is all but ignoring a theatrical release. Last Friday, in addition to its release on the streaming service, the movie opened in a few stray theaters nationwide (none in central Ohio). Unlike Amazon Studios (stewards of “Manchester by the Sea,” a so-called “tough sell” that ended up making $47 million theatrically), Netflix devotes little money to what it perceives as a rival exhibition platform.

So, like “Beasts of No Nation” two years ago and plenty of strong Netflix titles before and since, “Mudbound” is likely to be sidelined at the Oscars.

Rees and her ace cinematographer, Rachel Morrison, get the most out of the land, the weather, the clashes and, most important, the faces.

The landowners and the tenant farmers share the same muddy corner of the Delta, albeit uneasily. The McAllan family consists of Henry (Jason Clarke) and his wife, Laura (Carey Mulligan). The story moves from early scenes set in the 1930s into wartime, the 1940s. The McAllans have moved from Memphis to Mississippi, at Henry’s abrupt announcement that he always wanted to be a farmer. Scammed out of a nice house in town, they end up living in a shack next to the cotton fields, not far from the Jackson family.

Ronsel Jackson (Jason Mitchell) is the oldest child of Hap (Rob Morgan) and his wife, Florence (Mary J. Blige), and with his porkpie hat