Film Review | True Grit

When I got wind of the news that Joel and Ethan Coen – a pair of writer-director-producer siblings whose work I’ve consistently loved since my late teens – would be re-imagining True Grit, the Charles Portiss novel famously made into a John Wayne-starring Western in 1969, an ominous feeling brushed past my consciousness.

Were the Academy-award winning auteurs simply resting on their laurels, after raking in collective critical affection thanks to that other (neo) cowboy novel adaptation, No Country For Old Men?

And while the brothers made it clear from the get-go that True Grit was not a remake of the said John Wayne film – being a more faithful attempt at adapting the source novel – the fact that they were deliberately revisiting well-trod territory (no pun intended) still got alarm bells ringing.

There was always the possibility, of course, that the ever-irreverent, ever-clever Coens would employ some of their much-used postmodern trickery and turn the genre on its head, making an intellectual joke out of this earnest story of frontier justice.

But even that would feel a bit trite, almost a Coen cop out.

What I was expecting least of all was that the Coens would not only give way to playing it uncharacteristically straight… but would direct a film with genuine – indeed almost Disney-like – heart. Not that the brothers were ever exclusively sombre… a glace at their filmography shows that they do comedy remarkably well: from the stoner antics of The Big Lebowski to the screwball romance of Intolerable Cruelty and the merciless satire of Burn After Reading.

But even their ‘light’ output has always been marked by a cutting cruelty – they have the detached satirist’s eye for human frailty.
Which makes their romp across the old West with Lebowski-veteran Jeff Bridges, and promising newcomer Hailee Steinfeld all the more surprising.

The basic plot, like most Westerns, is quite simple.

Mattie Ross (Steinfeld) is a 14-year-old girl with a mission. Her father was senselessly murdered by an outlaw during a gambling spat. Fully aware that the conventional authorities will be sluggish to act given that the murder happened on Indian territory (and is therefore beyond their jurisdiction), Mattie decides to take the matter into her own hands, and seeks out a man with ‘true grit’ to bring the murderer, Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), to justice.

Enter Rooster J. Cogburn (Bridges) – a U.S. marshal well past his prime and well into his whiskey, whose violent track record assures Mattie that she might just have her man. Cogburn is reluctantly roped into Mattie’s quest, but as the two embark on their journey, they encounter Texas Ranger La Beouf (Matt Damon… it’s pronounced ‘La Beef’), who’s after the same target, but for more lucrative, high-profile reasons.

But Mattie is adamant that Cheney hangs for the murder of her father, and for nothing else.

The one thing that gives the film away as a Coens production is the fact that it’s remarkably well made. Their films have varied in genre, subject matter and even sometimes theme, but one thing that’s consistent throughout is their airtight construction.

But here, it’s not there for you to marvel at. Instead seeps into the storytelling fabric and helps the brothers tell a tale of remarkable simplicity and effect.

The way the do this, again, lies in a why-doesn’t-everyone-just-do-this simplicity: each scene is rendered with care so that nothing feels extra, or transitional… no mean feat, especially in a Western, where so much stock is placed in long stretches of expository, Lord of the Rings-like trekking across indigenous landscape.

In a twist that most clearly distances the Coens version from the Wayne film (and pulls it closer to the source novel), most of the action is focused on Mattie, and the one thing this makes abundantly clear is that Steinfeld should have snatched that Best Supporting Actress Oscar she lost to The Fighter’s Melissa Leo. Mattie’s precocity is matched in Steinfeld’s impressively consistent grip on a no-nonsense character who is a joy to watch as she maintains her poise in the face of cheats and brutes.

Which makes her burgeoning friendship with the equally emotionally reticent Rooster all the more endearing. Giving equal prominence to this unlikely pairing and the ensuing gunfights is another wise step on the Coen’s part.