It is difficult to know where to begin when discussing the new Matthew McConaughey film,
Free State of Jones. The film encompasses such a large canvas spanning nearly fifteen years from the heart of the Civil War in 1862 up until 1876 illustrating how, despite the war being over, many people-especially freed black men and women-were still fighting battles every day. If
Free State of Jones is anything it is an admirable piece of work, a beautiful disaster in some ways, but more than anything
Free State of Jones doesn't seem to know what to do with or how best to convey all that it so strongly desires to say. Writer/director Gary Ross (
Pleasantville, Seabiscuit, and the first
Hunger Games film) has created a two and a half hour epic of sorts, but in the end it still feels as if the movie has more to say. This isn't a good thing and it certainly doesn't do the audience, who have already sat through that extensive run time, much consolation if not some satisfaction. In many ways,
Free State of Jones should have been an HBO or FX miniseries that simultaneously chronicled the life of Newton Knight and how he seemingly lived for others as well as his family tree that came about after having children with Rachel (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), an African-American who was once a slave. That the feature film version of this story even attempts to go back and forth between the actions of Knight himself as well as eighty-five years into the future where one of his great grandchildren stands trial for being a small percentage African-American and is thus charged with breaking the law for marrying a Caucasian woman is nuts. Sure, the parallels between what Knight was fighting for in 1875 and what his descendants were still dealing with in the 1950's is effective and certainly makes a strong statement about how little has changed despite a considerable amount of time passing-making the main idea of the movie more relevant than ever today-there just isn't room for it here. Going from the midst of the Civil War to our protagonist hiding out in a swamp, to him building a community that forms the basis of his rebellion and eventual secession from the Confederacy, and then going even further into the continued struggles during the Reconstruction period
Free State of Jones leaves itself no room to breathe. That said, because there is so much there is a lot of stuff to find interesting as well. It is almost the opposite of that mantra that goes, "It's not what's being said, but how it's said," as
Free State of Jones is more focused on what's being said given how it's being said is something of a mess.
