True Grit

The Coen Brothers. Jeff Bridges. A western. What more could I want?

A good ending?

Maybe I had hyped the film too much. The trailer had me convinced. True Grit would be the one, the first great western since Eastwood shut the door with Unforgiven in 1992.  Here were Joel and Ethan Coen, come to breathe fresh life into a long irrelevant genre. Here was The Dude himself, Jeff Bridges, ready to abide on the open range. Here was newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, garnering rave review after rave review as the true star of the film.

And there I was, sitting in the theater, thoroughly underwhelmed.

I must take care to avoid being overly negative, because I liked True Grit. I really did. Just not as much I as had hoped to. The strengths of the film far outweigh the weaknesses, but the timing of the few mistakes only serve to call the whole thing into question.

The acting was top-notch. There's nothing left to say about Bridge's turn as Rooster Cogburn that hasn't already been said; it truly is the role of his life. Matt Damon is given relatively little screentime to shine as Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, but shine he does. Josh Brolin, in what amounts to little more than a cameo, creates a layered and troubled villain.

And of course, Steinfeld, as young Mattie Ross, earned all the praise she had been given. She single-handedly carries the first act of the film with such a precocious guile. No small feat, considering her most well-known work to date was the made-for-TV Summer Camp. She will  at least be nominated for, and should outright win, an Oscar for her performance.

The dialogue was marvelous. Gone was the typical stilted western drawl, in its place an almost medieval court-like reverence for language. Even unintelligent characters spoke with grace and eloquence that the words became surreal, giving the film a captivating and easily listenable pace.

The cinematography was breathtaking. But that's a given, it's a Coen Brothers film after all. Roger Deakins, long-time collaborator with the Coens, has a wonderful way of matching the look of the film to the mindsets of the characters. From the cold, unforgiving, snowy wastes of Fargo to the claustrophobic warmth of suburbia in A Serious Man, Deakins has proven his talent. He brought all of it to True Grit, creating a lush and hostile portrait of Indian Territory as Mattie and Rooster hunt their prey.

My issue was with the script, specifically, the ending. What was a well-crafted journey for Mattie, one of personal maturity and independence, was dashed after the action had seemingly been resolved. Rooster rode heroic ("Fill your hand you son of a bitch!" - glad they kept this line), LaBouef lived up to his big talk, and Mattie proved she was a woman true to her word. And then it ended. Lights up, everyone clapped, film of the year.

Oh wait. No, no it didn't end. For reasons that still baffle me, the film pressed on past its logical point of conclusion. Mattie fell in that hole, and with her fell my praise. Rarely is two hours worth of characterization and development cast aside as fast as it was in True Grit. In that single moment and the scenes that followed afterwards, the entirety of the film was undone. Mattie was once again weak and worthless without the help of others (in this case, most importantly, the help of a man).

It all just felt so pointless after that. An even more meaningless epilogue attempted to rectify this, but the damage had been done. I left the theater with a bad taste in my mouth, wanting desperately to say I loved it but finding myself unable.

True Grit situates itself firmly in the middle tier of Coen Brothers films. Not as great as the great, but not bad either. As far as westerns go, it fits in nicely with every recent attempt at the genre - flawed, and a far cry from definitive.