True Grit, the new film by the Coen brothers (The Big Lebowski, O Brother Where art Thou?, No Country for Old Men), is a remake of a 1969 film which was itself an adaption of Charles Portis’ novel. The 1969 film brought John Wayne an Oscar to for playing Rooster Cogburn; a gruff, one-eyed frontiersman; and while Wayne was very much the central character of the earlier film, this is not so in the Coen brother’s latest version where Jeff Bridges’ (Crazy Heart) Cogburn shares the screen with the excellent Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld, Grand Cru), and the film is better for it.
A determined and intelligent 14-year-old girl, Mattie is wise beyond her years, and arrives in Fort Smith, Arkansas with one purpose; to hire someone who can bring justice to the man who killed her father. After enquiring as to whom would be best suited she sets off to acquire the services of Cogburn (having heard he is the meanest bounty hunter around), and following two comical exchanges with him (where she clearly holds her own whilst negotiating with the drunken bounty hunter) he agrees to go after Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps) in the wild and unchartered Indian territory; thus beginning an unlikely friendship between the two.
Hailee Steinfeld was only 13 during production, yet acts with an assured maturity; thoroughly deserving her Oscar nomination; she has a remarkable screen presence for someone who is so young, and the most enjoyable scenes involve her verbally sparring with sly businessmen (trying to take advantage of her age), as she asserts her willpower through her use of language and strong Protestant sense of right and wrong. The Coen brother’s talent for sharp screenwriting is apparent in these scenes and indeed the only downside is that they do not last longer and that there are not more of them.
Jeff Bridges is regularly cast in the films of the Coen brothers to great effect, but in True Grit he is a slight disappointment; he plays a wily, self-centered man, who not only speaks in a highly unintelligible manner (most probably due to the many gallons of whisky and countless cigarettes he has consumed while on the trail of outlaws), but throughout his and Mattie’s journey is revealed to have lead a shambolic personal life, and a dodgy professional one, leading him to become more attached to the young Mattie as their journey goes on, and find comfort through an unlikely friendship with her; it’s is not a taxing role for Bridges (having played a similar character in last year’s Crazy Heart), and while he remains an actor of the highest quality, his showing in True Grit is underwhelming and nothing that we haven’t seen him do before. It’s a shame to say it, but Bridges doesn’t stretch himself in this film at all.
Alongside Bridges and Steinfeld is Hollywood’s most prolific actor of the moment; Matt Damon (The Bourne Ultimatum); as Cogburn’s opposite; Lebouef (a Texas ranger also on the trail of Chaney, who’s talkative, ambitious and very proud to be an officer of the law); a man who clashes with Cogburn in several scenes which should be captivating, but are oddly flat and instead of leaving us engaged by two fine actors going toe-to-toe, leave us wondering when Mattie will be back on screen (such is the appeal of her character).
True Grit is the most straightforward film the Coen’s have made to date, and disappointingly for their fans (of which there are many) it lacks the surreal edge that much of their other work contained; as whilst there are traces of the dark humour for which they are famous, it comes most notably in some very pithy, yet well delivered, one-liners by Jeff Bridges.
Bringing a simple beauty to the cinematography of True Grit Roger Deakins (The Shawshank Redemption cinematography who just won a BAFTA for his work on True Grit) manages to bring the barren and wintry landscapes to life; perfectly capturing the unforgiving world in which the characters live; and highlighting how refreshing it is to have a Western set in winter; pale blues and whites (reminiscent of the excellent modern western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford) replace the familiar yellow and orange colours that are so closely associated with the genre; whilst perfectly capturing how the old values of the wild west were being replaced by the modern world of capitalism (represented by men in business suits).
Another high point of the film is language; as every character takes great pleasure in constructing their well-rounded phrases in the most formal English possible, everyone that is, apart from Jeff Bridges (who tries his hardest to make every sentence more difficult to comprehend than the last).
While the plot of the film leaves the spectator wanting a little more, the careful attention to detail, in the way the everything is filmed, is impressive enough to sustain attention in itself, and while the simplicity of the film may be a little disappointing for fans of the Coen brothers former work (who are used to their breathless and frantic style of filmmaking), this is only a small gripe; as there’s something truly charming about how the film is shot and the way in which the characters of True Grit speak (although the movie’s stand out feature remains the performance of Hailee Steinfeld; a name to watch out for in the future).
