Blu-ray Review – The Southerner

While 1945's "The Southerner" isn't a documentary, it does get a few details of the American Dream exactly right, creating an unnerving realism that's softened somewhat by the picture's literary approach to storytelling (adapted from the novel by George Sessions Parry). It's directed by Jean Renoir, who offers an impressive amount of sympathy for his lead characters, striving to identify the malleability of the human spirit as it's hit from all sides by tragedy and defeat. "The Southerner" isn't quite the funeral dirge it promises to be, supporting a mood of perseverance that inspires as much as it horrifies. Read the rest at Blu-ray.com