[NEWS] Five Notable Films at the Sundance Film Festival

These five films have left a lasting impression on us during the Sundance Film Festival including Dee Rees' 'Mudbound' starring actress Carey Mulligan and actor Garrett Hedlund, Cory Finley's 'Thoroughbred' starring actresses Anya Taylor-Joy and Olivia Cooke, Marti Noxon's 'To the Bone' starring actress Lily Collins and actor Keanu Reeves, Taylor Sheridan's 'Wind River' starring actor Jeremy Reener and actress Elizabeth Olsen, and Alexandre Moors's 'The Yellow Birds' starring actors Alden Ehrenreich and Tye Sheridan. Here is a brief assessment of those five movies.

Mudbound

Critics and audiences went wild for director Dee Ree's roiling Southern epic, adaption from author Hilary Jordan's acclaimed novel. It's not hard to see why. The film is muscular and sprawling, telling the long and complicated story of two families sharing the same fraught space: a Mississippi Delta farm, owned by a white family and worked on, for generations, but a sharecropping black family. 'Mudbound' - primarily set in the charged and uncertain years after World War II - highlights a time and place that we don't often see on film, which is welcome. The film's cast is strong, most of all actor Garrett Hedlund and and actor Jason Mitchell as two young veterans who form a dangerous friendship as they process their war trauma together. Rob Morgan is also terrific, playing a principled sharecropper who dreams of owning a piece of land, but is consistently thwarted by the demands of his callous white landlords (played by actor Jason Clarke and Oscar-nominated actress Carey Mulligan) and the broader inequities of the era. As robust and damning examination of he mechanics and horrors of racism, 'Mudbound' is often quite effective. It's the kind of big meaty storytelling that can feel awfully invigorating amidst a sea of wispier indie fare. Awards prognosticators would be wise to keep an eye on this one.

Thoroughbred

A startling prodigious directorial debut from playwright Cory Finley, this nasty piece of work applies a Park Chan-wook-esque vibe to a Heathers-like tale. Actress Anya Taylor-Joy and the fantastically deadpan actress Olivia Cooke play two sociopath teenagers hatching a murder plot. Though, it's not a terribly complicated scheme. Largely set in an opulent mansion humor and grim, chilly feel of a castle or a dungeon, 'Thoroughbred' never strains to be naughty or twisted. Its pessimism and arch tone are organic, Finley having a remarkably smooth, assured command of his dark little world. There's even some poetry to it, if no real moral redemption. With Cook and Taylor-Joy making mean music together, 'Thoroughbred' is a pithy and winning provocation. And as a statement of intent from a promising new director, it's very exciting.

To the Bone

Television writer legend Marti Noxon - of 'Buffy the Vampire Slayer', 'Mad Men', 'Grey's Anatomy', and 'UnREAL' - makes her feature directorial debut with this personal, finely realized comedy-drama about a young woman grappling with anorexia. She's Ellen, a smart standoffish early twenty-something played with piercing credibility by Golden Globe award-nominated actress Lily Collins, who here reveals dimensions of her talent previously unseen. Ellen has been in and out of treatment facilities for most of her adolescent years, and seems to be giving up the fight. But her chipper step-mother (a sympathetic Emmy award-winning actress Carrie Preston) has one last idea sending Ellen to an alternative facility run by a kind, cool doctor played by actor Keanu Reeves. There, Ellen meets a range of broken - or at least hurting - souls, including a cute Brit named Luke, played with exceeding charm by Tony award-winning young actor Alex Sharp. Sharp makes his film debut along with Noxon, and he proves himself to the manner born. He and Collins have a sparkling rapport that works equally well romantically or platonically, a sharply rendered relationship that has quirky cinematic zest while still seeming genuine. But this is mostly Collin's movie, and she holds it well, navigating a volatile, fragile emotional landscape with subtlety and insight. She's perfectly in-step with Noxon's filmmaking, which eschews the goop of easy sentiment, instead favoring wry, weary frankness. Despite its harrowing subject matter, 'To the Bone' is not some miserablist trek through body horror and despair. There is some of that, but fo rthe most part Noxon's engaging film is funny and humane.

Wind River

The conclusion to writer/director Taylor Sheridan's film trilogy about crime and socioeconomics in the American West, 'Wind River' marks Sheridan's first at-bat as a director. He acquits himself pretty well, capably setting a compelling scene for a snowbound murder mystery. A woman is found dead far out in the wilderness on an American Indian reservation in Wyoming. She's discovered by an eace Fish & Wildlife hunter played by Oscar-nominated actor Jeremy Reener, and the case is handed over to the F.B.I. Or, at least to one young F.B.B. agent, played by actress Elizabeth Olsen. 'Wind River' is a perfectly entertaining murder mystery with some meditations on the plight of reservations and some shrouded critique of the fossil fuels industry added in to give the film heft.

The Yellow Birds

A lyrical bitterly sad drama adapted from the novel by author Kevin Powers about boys ruined by war, director Alexandre Moors's film succeeds on style. Actor Alden Ehrenreich plays Brandon Bartle, an aimless Army enlistee who befriends an even younger new soldier, a gentle soul Daniel Murphy played by Critic's Choice award-nominated actor Tye Sheridan. As the film loops between timelines - pre-, during, and post-deployment - we learn that something bad has happened involving Daniel. 'The Yellow Birds' is loosely built as a mystery, but mostly the film feels like a striking visual as Ehrenreich and Sheridan's characters traverse fiery desert hells and dreamy moonscapes. There are some truly stunning shots in 'The Yellow Birds', the answer to the mystery is brutal, and the film's insights into life in war feel like retreads of other Iraq/Afghanistan movies that have come before. The performances are strong with Ehrenreich proving himself yet again as a mettle rising star, and Golden Globe award-winning actress Jennifer Aniston gives a nice understated turn as Brandon's mother, who is on a dogged quest for answers about her son. Mostly, though, 'The Yellow Birds' will make you eager to see what Moors does next as he is an intriguing filmmaker.