Gary Ross‘s Free State of Jones (STX) pops on 5.13 — an unusual opening for a movie that feels fall-ish, or which certainly doesn’t feel the least bit escapist or warm weathery. Boilerplate: “An epic action-drama set during the Civil War, it tells the story of defiant Southern farmer, Newt Knight (Matthew McConaughey), and his armed rebellion against the Confederacy. Banding together with other small farmers and local slaves, Knight launched an uprising that led Jones County, Mississippi, to secede from the Confederacy, creating a Free State of Jones.” From Wiki page: Knight had “a common-law marriage to a former slave, Rachel, which effectively established a small mixed-race community in southeastern Mississippi.” Rachel is played in Ross’s film by Gugu Mbatha-Raw. The interracial aspect was ignored when Van Heflin played a character closely based on KNnight in George Marshall’s Tap Roots (’48).