True Grit
Watching “True Grit” as adapted by Joel and Ethan Coen makes one curious as to what impulse inspired the rascally bros to play it straight with Charles Portis’s novel for their third Western (look again at the twin Oscar winners, “Fargo” and “No Country for Old Men,” and tell me they aren’t dealing with Old West archetypes in those classics). I mean, these are the same sly siblings that turned Homer’s Odyssey into a Southern comedy (with “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”), an upper-crust British farce into a Southern Gothic misfire (2004’s “The Ladykillers,” still their worst film), and the archetypes of Raymond Chandler’s noir into a wild cult classic (“The Big Lebowski”). Surely they would have to add a little of their droll wittiness to a new version of the material that won John Wayne his only Oscar?
Actually, not so much. Like with “No Country for Old Men,” the closer they stick with the source, the more naturally the brothers’ voice comes through on its own in telling the story of Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld), a 14-year-old daughter looking to hire a killer to track down the man who murdered her father in cold blood. The man on the run is Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin, well cast but not seen enough), who was taken in by Mattie’s father when he needed it but repaid that kindness by sending her father to the grave. Mattie seems unimposing, but seeing her strong arm a horse seller who dealt with her father before his passing to get money she feels is owed to her makes us do a double-take. That same strength and intellect are necessary for her to enlist US Marshal “Rooster” Cogburn (Jeff Bridges in the Wayne role), a one-eyed and perpetually drunken wreck, who nonetheless can take aim with the best of them, to track Chaney into Indian territory so she can get justice, whether by her own hand or the law’s.
As Cogburn, Bridges does what he always does in any movie, whether it’s a Coen Brother film, a blockbuster like “TRON: Legacy,” or an Oscar winner like “Crazy Heart”: he disappears into the role with intelligence and passion to spare. As I said in my “TRON: Legacy” review, he elevates the material (however unworthy it might be at the time) to his level and makes his part of the film memorable. Thankfully, the Coens are pretty clever when it comes to casting, and both here and in “Lebowski,” they gave Bridges a plum role that is the subversive soul of the movie. It’s true Bridges is not half the icon Wayne was as a star, but he is twice the performer; the result is a weathered and wryly delivered turn that is looking to put Bridges in Oscar’s sights once again this year.
The towering performance Bridges delivers makes it all the more striking that it’s in fact the character of Mattie Ross who is the film’s main focus, which is where Portis put his focus. The narration at the beginning of the movie from a clear-eyed and older Ross sets the tone of this story as a recollected memory of when Mattie was forced to grow up. It’s a mournful series of events (no 14-year-old should be asked to take his/her father’s mantle of maturity so early), with Roger Deakins’s cinematography and Carter Burwell’s score (one of his best for the Brothers) evoking that sense of loss of innocence about the world. But the role (and similarly the movie) would not have worked had Steinfeld (a newcomer) stepped up to the plate. That she does in a performance that captures, with striking clarity, the “not a girl, not yet a woman” characterization of Mattie perfectly is a tribute to this new talent and to the Coens, who have always had a way with casting. A lesser actress (working with lesser filmmakers) would have buckled at having to stand her ground with people like Bridges, Brolin, Barry Pepper (as Chaney’s partner Lucky Ned Pepper) and Matt Damon (a hoot and a half as Texas Ranger La Boeuf (pronounced “La Beef”)) for the film’s two hour length. That she does not is one more surprise from the Coens, who show with their latest that the Western isn’t dead; it just needs filmmakers who can see it clearly… and respectfully.
