Free State of Jones

Free State of Jones is a film with the potential to be great, yet tumbled to just decent to watch.  The subject matter is complex and the lead character Newton Knight is an absolutely compelling person.  Unfortunately for this film, a direction of focus was lacking.  What was delivered were malformed snippets of a rebellion, a love story, a revenge story, and a war drama.  Trying to jam all these marshmallows through a keyhole was the where this film has to be downgraded.  Director Gary Ross hasn’t often missed.  In fact, I’d say as a writer-director, this is the only misfire in his catalog. The film is still quite watchable and you can certainly enjoy it and let the subject matter and some facts about political allegiances and corruption wash over you.  As I said there is a great story here that just wasn’t told properly.  Calling this film Free State of Jones really means the primary focus should have been on how this band of rag tags made a place for themselves of tolerance in the deep south of Mississippi in the midst of war.  Racial tension is brimming all over the news cycles and this was a film that could have set a beautiful (if not perfect) example of how we are all one.  That is touched on and well, but the film veers off in so many directions, those moments get overshadowed.

The cast is what made this film watchable and enjoyable enough to recommend people at least see it.  Matthew McConaughey is on a great roll with his roles lately.  He brings his chops to this character.  What I do love was the choice of subtlety in the portrayal.  He’s clearly the lead but there’s no over-pouring of “THIS guy made it all happen.”  He’s clearly the leader, yet the surrounding characters get to breath some life into establishing this community.

Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays love interest Rachel, a house slave accurately portrayed light skinned.  She’s the star of the film to me, and had this been a film more focused on forbidden love in time of rebellion, she’d have stood out and shined bright.  Thankfully we get some great emotion and strength out of her.  She isn’t some doe eyed melted heart girl when McConaughey’s Knight starts hinting interest.  She’s a realist.  Gugu plays her so nuanced.  You see the hunger for knowledge but the fear of letting on that she was smart.  She gives us this strong pillar woman with flaws like anyone else.

Mahershala Ali and Keri Russell were such strong support.  The problem here again lies in direction.  Ali playing Moses, was a runaway slave who’s will could not be broken.  Keri Russell gives us Serena, a farm wife and kin to Kight that has everything taken from her piece by piece and its played to perfection, possibly her best perfromance.  You get to see her take the character through strong and resilient, to the point of breaking and needing help.  There was a chance to show a great growth of respect between Rachel and Serena but instead it was given short shrift near the end of the film.  Back to Ali, Moses had a nice build of character in the beginning, then like Serena he just pops in and out and in and out over and over so right when you are getting somewhere and feeling invested, its yanked away to another genre of film.

Personally I believe the bottom line is, the director tried too hard to do too much.  To make this film more than it needed to be.  And with Birth of a Nation looming large, a film that seems promised to be a triumph in film as a whole, not just the slave genre.  I’m certain that had no bearing on the choices made here, but Ross needed to give this a focus with at most 2 other sub genre touches.  There’s a glimmer of how good this could have been but as I stated at the onset…it was just decent to watch.  One thing we really didn’t need was the flash forward scenes in the 1950s court case involving his great grandson.  That’s a storyline that in most films of this type, would have been best served as a credits photo/info sequence.  Once the meat of the film is over before the credits roll, slide in these interesting facts and points.  Its worked for years and years.  Let us be invested in the characters that we NEED to be, and we’ll stay to get the rest of the story.

I can certainly say that there is one aspect of the film aside from the acting that i enjoyed and that was the politics.  Accurately showing the difference between Democrats and Republicans in the 1800s as opposed to the modern versions.  The roles have been completely flipped.  They were flipped in the days when segregation was coming to an end.  Casual watchers may not find that nugget and appreciate it but I certainly have been waiting for that to be touched on.

Its hard to say you must see this film, but its got some solid performances and historical relevance to modern times that it does merit consideration of 2 hours of your time.