Dee Rees is a gifted filmmaker with a clear interest in telling painfully human stories of race, identity, and struggle, always interested in richness of character. She arrived on the scene with “Pariah,” making a splash with a lauded indie production, graduating to more traditional creative interests with “Bessie,” which offered a shot at the creation of a bio-pic, dramatizing the life and times of singer Bessie Smith. With “Mudbound,” Rees’s moviemaking scope widens as she pursues a particularly bleak era in American history, sustaining career interests with an adaptation Hillary Jordan’s novel, taking viewers into the bowels of Alabama during the 1940s. It’s a feature drenched in suffering, hate, weather, and pain, making it a troubling sit. However, Rees does have a vision for the effort, helping to carry “Mudbound” through patches of familiarity, coming through with capable take on prejudice and rural isolation.  Read the rest at Blu-ray.com