In Relation To True Grit

Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is a girl to be reckoned with. When her father is shot in cold blood by the coward Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), Mattie hires U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) to pursue Chaney into Indian Territory. Of course, she wants to go along. After all, it was her father who was shot down. She has the right to make certain that Chaney pays for his crime with his life.

There's not much to be said story-wise for most westerns. They follow basically the same pattern: Good guy rides into a town dominated by the bad guy, who also has some sort of hold over the girl. Shooting ensues. Bad guy ends up dead, the good guy marries the girl, and everybody lives happily ever after. There are exceptions to this storyline, of course, but most are fairly minor. The very charm of westerns lie in their old-fashioned good-vs.-evil, underdog, man-of-courage feel. True Grit deviates from those stereotypes and is the better for it.

Despite the ads and publicity, which seem to indicate otherwise, the protagonist is the fourteen-year-old girl Mattie Ross, not Rooster Cogburn. Mattie is the driving force behind the expedition into Indian Territory, Mattie is the one who introduces and ends the story, and Mattie is the glue that holds everything together. This focus on a girl - a young girl, for that matter - is unusual for a western, and brings a breath of fresh air. Of course, Mattie is not like most other fourteen-year-old girls. But, while she may get the better of her elders in bargaining and arguing, she still has her moments of vulnerability and childishness. The simple fact that she is such a big part of the story, despite being a young girl, sets True Grit apart from its fellow westerns.

(While I'm on the subject of Mattie Ross, I'd like to address a pet peeve of mine. In my opinion, it's strange that Hailee Steinfeld was nominated for "best supporting actress" and not "best actress." Her character is the star of the movie, even though she wasn't marketed as such. Furthermore, it's insulting that the best supporting actress award was given to Helena Bonham Carter of The King's Speech, who gave a performance that was fabulous, but somewhat limited in screen time. I have a friend who insists that the quaint way of talking used by Mattie in True Grit makes it difficult to determine how much of her performance was good and how much was just hidden by her speech, but I disagree. I have seen too many teenaged actresses attempt to act and fail miserably not to recognize a good performance when I see it. I suspect the real reason Bonham Carter won is either that the Oscars wanted to dump as many awards as possible on The King's Speech, or that there was some sort of bias against True Grit - which was nominated for ten awards, but didn't win a single one.)

To pick up my review where I left off, True Grit is an unusual western for another reason. The quaint speech, with few contractions, long, old-fashioned words, and sometimes exceedingly long sentences, might seem stilted to some, but at least it's unusual. As a fan of old British books and, as you may already have noticed, someone who writes with long sentences, I found the speech to be delightful. A little strange at first, but very enjoyable. I have always been bothered by the modern way of talking in westerns; it seems to me that the people who inhabited the West over a hundred years ago would have a different, more old-fashioned way of talking than we do. True Grit finally addressed this concern.

In another deviance from the usual pattern of westerns, True Grit is well done on almost every front. As I said, Hailee Steinfeld is wonderful as Mattie. Jeff Bridges is perfect as Rooster Cogburn, and Matt Damon is hilarious as mustached and side-burned Texas Ranger LaBoeuf. Writing and costumes are equally as good, to the point where Mattie's skin looks a little oily when she wakes up in the boarding house in town. I have never seen a movie - much less a western - with that great of attention to detail.

Essentially, True Grit is probably my favorite western. 3:10 to Yuma (the one with Christian Bale and Russell Crowe) similarly rejects many of the stereotypes and conventions of westerns, but is too brutal and has too much other content (however brief) for me to enjoy seeing more than once or twice a year. True Grit, on the other hand, manages to break with tradition without taking the content to a modern level. As someone who warily approaches even PG-13 movies, I appreciate that.

My Rating: T (violence, language)

*UPDATE* Rather embarrassingly, I recently discovered that Helena Bonham Carter did not win best supporting actress for The King's Speech. Melissa Leo from The Fighter actually won the award. While I stand by my statement that Hailee Steinfeld was better than Bonham Carter, I wholeheartedly endorse Leo's win.