With their love of weaving intricate tapestries of colloquial dialogue it’s no wonder that the Coen brothers have decided to make an adaptation of a western novel. What might be a bit surprising is the way in which they adapted the material. They’ve adapted previously existing material before, but by hugely altering it and making it undeniably a Coen brothers movie. For this one they’ve made an adaptation that’s arguably more faithful to the original source material than the 1969 film adaptation starring John Wayne. This may just be the most straight, accessible film that the Coens have ever made. But that’s not to say that this is a radical departure from what they’ve done in the past. Nor is it a cynical attempt to make something that is pointed at a mainstream audience. True Grit can stand next to the typical western film without making itself conspicuous as a standout in many ways, but in other, subtler ways it radically breaks from the tropes of the genre. This is a very talky film, the first act especially. In many ways the trading of dialogue among the main characters is the main attraction. There’s not a whole lot of action here. Sure, there are a couple of gunfights, but they’re not the focus of what is happening. The cinematography is undeniably beautiful, but not in the same showy, “look at these wide open spaces” way that most westerns are. Roger Deakins, the Coens’ usual director of photography shoots the film, and he already did that type of stuff perfectly in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. The action here takes place in small shacks, in caves, in dense forests. This is a more intimate, personal story than you get in most westerns. The music isn’t the usual gallopy, knock two halves of a coconut together to reproduce the sound of horse hooves score that appears in traditional westerns. The Coens’ usual musical collaborator Carter Burwell creates the score of the film by repeating the strains of an old hymnal called ‘Leaning on the Everlasting Arms’. The complete song is played over the end credits. So all the hallmarks of a typical Coen brothers film are all there; all of the usual collaborators are in place. But what they’ve made here, your parents just might like too.
The story of True Grit is in many ways a typical road story. Three characters get set on a path towards a goal and bond along the way. Luckily for us the characters that we get are all very distinct and well defined, and it makes their interactions just a ton of fun to watch. The story begins with a murder. A fourteen-year-old girl named Mattie Ross’ father is murdered by an employee of his named Tom Chaney while out on a business trip to purchase horses, and she intends on seeking vengeance for the act. In order to achieve this she seeks out the shrewdest, most cruel US Marshall to hunt him down and ends up consequently hiring an old, fat alcoholic of a man named Rooster Cogburn. They are joined on the trail by a Texas Marshall named LaBoeuf who has been tracking Chaney’s movements even previous to the murder of Mattie’s father. Mattie, Cogburn, and LaBoeuf are three people who would never find themselves interacting in any normal situation but are now thrust out into the wilderness and forced to figure out how to interact with each other. Despite their varied skills and accomplishments, all three are stubborn babies when you boil them down to their cores. They’re all self-important, stubborn, and refuse to see things from any perspective other than their own. This is the entertainment of the film.
The story of True Grit is in many ways a typical road story. Three characters get set on a path towards a goal and bond along the way. Luckily for us the characters that we get are all very distinct and well defined, and it makes their interactions just a ton of fun to watch. The story begins with a murder. A fourteen-year-old girl named Mattie Ross’ father is murdered by an employee of his named Tom Chaney while out on a business trip to purchase horses, and she intends on seeking vengeance for the act. In order to achieve this she seeks out the shrewdest, most cruel US Marshall to hunt him down and ends up consequently hiring an old, fat alcoholic of a man named Rooster Cogburn. They are joined on the trail by a Texas Marshall named LaBoeuf who has been tracking Chaney’s movements even previous to the murder of Mattie’s father. Mattie, Cogburn, and LaBoeuf are three people who would never find themselves interacting in any normal situation but are now thrust out into the wilderness and forced to figure out how to interact with each other. Despite their varied skills and accomplishments, all three are stubborn babies when you boil them down to their cores. They’re all self-important, stubborn, and refuse to see things from any perspective other than their own. This is the entertainment of the film.
Mattie Ross is played by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, and unlike the 1969 film that focused more heavily on the Cogburn character; she carries the weight of this film and turns in a performance good enough to guarantee her at least a couple more high profile jobs under the high-pressure circumstances. Mattie is a plucky young combination of Natalie Portman’s character in Beautiful Girls and Peggy Olson from Mad Men. She is mature beyond her years. She is, for sure, thrusting herself into a situation where she is in over her head, but she is always sharp and quick enough to adapt to whatever is happening around her and traverse her way through the new world that she has found herself in. It is her thirst for vengeance that starts our plot in motion, her blind and merciless search that creates the trail of bodies we see in the film, and after she has had her way none of the characters in this film leave the same way that they entered. Mattie is unyielding, hard beyond her years, and whether or not her prematurely uncompromising disposition is going to soften by the end of the film is one of the primary questions that the story concerns itself with.
Rooster Cogburn is much more of a supporting character here than he was in the original, but Jeff Bridges plays the character like the perfect side dish; flavorful and full of personality, but not overpowering the other elements of the meal. Bridges’ version of the character is very lived in. Wayne’s Cogburn was crotchety and gruff, but he was also clean and freshly shaved. Bridge’s version of the character is filthy dirty, covered in hair; you can almost see the stink lines coming off of him. This version of Cogburn lived in the real old west. He actually killed people. He is made out of glass and gravel and whiskey and mud and blood. There is nothing cinematic or Hollywood about him, and he is consequently very fun to watch. To the chase, Cogburn is the sort of man who will ride a horse into the ground and then shoot it in the head if that’s what it takes for him to reach his goal. He’s a survivor. We’re led to believe that the title of the film refers to his character, and whether it does or not, gritty doesn’t even begin to describe Rooster Cogburn as played by Jeff Bridges.
Matt Damon plays LaBoeuf, and he presents him as a real prancing dandy. He’s like the smug Prince Charming character in a parody of the typical fairy tale, all ego and sparkly smiles. He never let’s an opportunity to mention that he is a Texas Ranger pass, and he lives and dies by his Ranger training. This, of course, grates against Cogburn’s gruff demeanor and more fly by the seat of his soiled pants approach to bounty hunting. It’s the self-made millionaire getting stuck in a partnership with a fresh-faced graduate who hasn’t done anything but get a degree. Damon plays the role with subtle humor that I haven’t really seen him pull off before this. He was pretty broadly funny in The Informant! last year, but here he takes a pretty straight character on paper and makes everything he does humorous by coloring it with a slight smugness.
Somewhere along the way our three heroes get word that Chaney has taken up with the Lucky Ned Pepper Gang. Lucky Ned is played by Barry Pepper, an actor that I haven’t seen in a while, and the way he is able to make an impression with only a few minutes of screen time in this could very well bring about a resurgence of his career. Pepper is a man with a calculated, cruel cunning. His look is grotesque; he’s all sunken-in eyes, sallow skin, and snaggled teeth. At times he could pass for an extra in a zombie movie. He wears a pair of furry chaps that set him apart visually from the other characters in the film and really gives him an iconic and memorable visual profile. Pepper delivers his dialogue with a tone of hatred and resentment that could give Damon’s smugness a run for its money. He doesn’t so much say the words in the script as he tears at them like a coyote tearing into a carcass. He’s clearly got a history and familiarity with Cogburn, and I sure wouldn’t be sad about seeing some sort of prequel pitting Bridges and Pepper against each other. You know, if the Coens could ever be convinced to make a film series. Now that they’ve made a western that doesn’t really turn the genre on its ear so much as it does play it straight, could a sequel to something they’ve done before be the next trick they use to keep us on our toes? I’ll admit that under such a circumstance I would hope for another Lebowski mystery first, but a Rooster Cogburn/Lucky Ned Pepper film wouldn’t be too far behind.
When the search finally reaches its conclusion, we come across Tom Chaney for the first time, and we see that he is played by Josh Brolin, the reveal is well worth the wait. Brolin is able to muster up a sliminess that doesn’t just get all over him; it gets all over you as you watch him inhabit Chaney’s skin. It’s not hard to see why the prospect of her father being killed by such a piece of filth eats at Mattie’s gut the way that it does. Chaney is a coward, a cheat, and an idiot. At one point he is able to take Mattie hostage and he makes your skin crawl every second that he hovers over her. You don’t quite know what he plans to do to her, because it doesn’t seem like he knows what he’s going to do either. I can’t imagine any situation where Chaney could be working under any sort of plan. If Pepper is a coyote tearing into a carcass, then Chaney is a wounded one with his leg caught in a trap. He projects fear and a desperate stupidity every second that he’s on screen.
