True Grit (2010)

True Grit (2010) by the Coen Brothers

This is my favorite "serious" film from 2010. Hands down. Practically everything about this film is absolutely perfect, and it couldn't possibly get too much praise. After the misstep that was Burn After Reading (an anarchic, misanthropic mess that I absolutely hate with a passion), Joel and Ethan Coen return to the American West, the setting of some of their more exciting and interesting works. Like their last Western, the contemporary, apocalyptic No Country For Old Men, the Coens adapted a novel (the misanthropic Cormac McCarthy wrote the aforementioned novel). Here, the Coens work not so much as to remake the 1969 Henry Hathaway-directed John Wayne vehicle (which garnered him his only Oscar) as to retell the novel by Charles Portis, which veers from scene to scene (and almost from line to line) into the realms of comedy, tragedy, and action.
The film starts with the murder of the father of protagonist Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) by the dim-witted Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin). Jumping several years later, Mattie has grown into a strong-willed, quick-witted young woman determined to avenge her father's murder. To do so, she seeks out US Marshall Reuben "Rooster" Cogburn (Jeff Bridges, quite possibly outdoing John Wayne in his iconic role), a tough-as-nails one-eyed lawman not afraid to get his hands dirty, a man she describes as "having true grit". In true Coen fashion, she first solicits his skills while he's inside an outhouse. Begrudgingly, she convinces him to take up her cause, eventually accompanying him on his trek, along with the uptight, well-spoken LaBeouf (Matt Damon) an Army Ranger also on Chaney's trail, along with the gang in which Chaney's a member, Lucky Ned Pepper's gang.
The language of this iteration feels much closer to being out of a novel, unlike the original film, which felt considerably like a staged reading (different acting and directing styles). The romanticized notion of the American West has likewise been stripped away, and now what is presented is something at once alien and familiar, cold and yet homely. The characters understand the stakes one needs to take to survive in the wilderness, and the Coens neither romanticize nor gloss over what it takes to survive. The West is the West, both beautiful and unnerving. A vacuum of civilization with flourishes of animated life (just around the corner, in the middle of a mountain pass, one can find a doctor. In the middle of a forest the characters encounter what is only credited as the "Bear Man").
The utter futility of a civilized life is explored here, as Mattie eventually does encounter Chaney, and yet, when she is captured by Lucky Ned (Barry Pepper), is treated with an outdated, genteel sort of respect. It's quaint, the notion of bad guys still having enough morals to not mistreat a 16-year-old girl, and that's a shame. The notion of virtuous villains, and codes of conduct between enemies, during a period of life that was comparatively much more dangerous than any of us reading this would ever have to face, should not be confined to motion pictures. The futility of maintaining a proper decorum during trying times is one of the constant themes of this film.
The banality of human existence, too, seems one of the core points of exploration. For me, the most beautiful scene in the film is a sequence in which Rooster rushes to bring Mattie to a doctor. He runs the horse upon which they're riding to the ground, to the point it collapses in exhaustion, shoots it, and continues on foot, carrying her for miles in the middle of the night, in the middle of the desert. The sequence is shot in the exact same way: Rooster carrying Mattie is shot with the exact same angles in which the horse carrying Rooster is shot. This is the American West; life is a means of getting from one place to the other, nothing more. A man is as replaceable a commodity as a horse is.
As an adventure yarn, this is a great film. As mentioned,the film is fun and funny in equal turns, rich in its language, and gorgeously shot (by the ever amazing Roger Deakins), this is one of the better films of 2010, one of my favorites of the year (on the list with films like Scott Pilgrim, The Expendables, and Kick-Ass, so it's pretty eclectic). This might just also be my favorite modern Coens' film, a perfect companion piece to No Country For Old Men, and visual proof that an adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is entirely possible to complete faithfully.