Joel and Ethan Coen’s adaptation of Charles Portis’ novel True Grit paints a beautiful if harsh picture of life on the Arkansas frontier. The film follows Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) as she hires Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges), a deputized gun, to hunt and hopefully kill her father’s murderer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). Cogburn is an infamous and frequently drunk marshal, having shot or killed many of the people he set out to find. This fact actually ingratiates him to Mattie, as she wants nothing less than for Chaney to suffer the same fate as her father. Mattie has intelligence, rhetorical skill, courage, and an unflinching nerve that surprise nearly everyone she meets given that she is only fourteen years old. Chaney is also being hunted by a Texas Ranger, LaBouef (Matt Damon), for murdering a senator back in Texas. The film takes the shape of a quest narrative, and given what we know of quests, we can safely assume that the journey will not be what the characters expected, nor will they return unchanged.
True Grit is an extremely watchable film and incredibly funny. I found myself laughing throughout the movie at the pinpoint dialogue and brilliant characterization of the world’s inhabitants. Damon’s gregarious and cocky LaBouef is so tonally correct I wondered why it took so long for the Coens to put him in one of their movies. The film is textured and surprising, which marks a true accomplishment since the quest is one of the oldest motifs in literature. Brolin does not portray Chaney as some monster, but more like a dangerous child who has never felt appreciated. Bridges embodies every inch of Cogburn’s body. You can nearly smell the booze on his breath. The real surprise of the film, however comes from Steinfeld, who handles the smart and complex dialogue with incredible ease. There are accomplished and well-paid actors and actresses two or three times her age who would sound incredibly dumb trying to deliver these lines. Every character, from the leads, to each supporting role is three-dimensional to such a degree I was reminded of the Coens’ mid-1990’s masterpieces Fargo and The Big Lebowski. In those films each role, including those with only a few seconds’ screen time, were wonderfully quirky without being caricatures. The inhabitants of True Grit are similarly well-developed. It is an exceptional film.
True Grit, for all its technical skill — the Coens’ script, the acting, and Roger Deakins’ cinematography are superb — offers a powerful picture of a world where life holds little value. Early in the film, Mattie stands in a crowd and watches the hangings of convicted criminals. The snaps of the nooses momentarily shocks the witnesses, but they quickly return to their business. People in the film are killed quickly, violently, and with little reflection. Mattie, who narrates the film as an older woman, reflects that the only thing that is free in the world is God’s grace — everything else comes with a price. When we meet Cogburn, we see that he has lost an eye earlier in his life. Along the journey, LaBoef and Mattie are both permanently injured. The film’s world is, in the words of theologian Miroslav Volf, “stripped of grace.” Mattie may say that grace is the only free thing in the world, but we never see it extended to anyone. Furthermore, whether justice is ever restored is a question hanging over the film, though to its credit, the film does not ask this question explicitly. True Grit creates a world where all debts are collected and nothing is forgiven.
The Coen brothers have been some of my favorite filmmakers ever since I saw Fargo. Their films have played with the tensions of fate versus chance, good versus evil, and violence versus peace. More recently, however, their films have addressed blatantly theological questions. A Serious Man retold the biblical story of Job with a thematic faithfulness to the text that should make any believer of the Judeo-Christian God uncomfortable. True Grit explores questions of grace, justice, and vengeance. We as an audience embrace and enjoy Mattie early. We cheer for her. Her doggedness in achieving her goal of seeking the death of her father’s murderer wins us over to her side quickly. Because she never questions her sense of right and wrong and we accept her worldview, it is not until after the film is over that we begin to question this sharp-tongued, shrewd, and brilliant young woman. She may have the perseverance of Odysseus, but her quest is to kill Chaney. Whether that happens out in the wilderness by a bullet or in a town at the end of a rope, makes no difference to her. All that matters is that Chaney pays for her father’s death with his life. Only upon reflection do we begin to see that her determination may be a thirst for blood cloaked in a sense of justice.
I try not to give weight to awards all that much these days given that it seems they are given based more on advertizing and politics than on merit — also, I have qualms with pitting such different pieces of art against one another. All that said, I agree with the attention that Steinfeld has received for her work. She was nominated for several supporting actress awards. This makes me wonder, what constitutes a lead role? Mattie is easily the main character of the story. She is in nearly every scene. She creates and drives the action. She changes more than any other character in the film. She has more dialogue than any other role. How is that not a lead role? If there are to be awards and contests for acting, Steinfeld should have been nominated for best actress in a lead role.
The Space Between the Arts 