True Grit (2010)

10 Academy Award Nominations including Best Picture

directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

starring Hailee Steinfeld, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon

My immediate reaction to this film was: wait, it's over? True Grit is close to 2 hours long, but the story flies by - and I can't quite decide if this is a compliment or not. The characters were captivating and the actors did an excellent job, and the story of Mattie Ross's determination inspires admiration and fascination, but by the time the movie flashed forward all I could this was...that's it?

After a few days of meditation, I do think it's a compliment. The plot unfolds slowly at times, but the people at the center of True Grit easily command attention. Jeff Bridges is, of course, Jeff Bridges - he brings a wonderful gruff spirit to the central Rooster Cogburn. Matt Damon did an excellent job as Texas Ranger LaBoeuf, and in my opinion almost stole the film. Any scene that featured his bickering with Bridges was massively entertaining. The real star here was Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, however, and she indeed deserves to rise as a star after this career-making performance. The weight of the movie rests on the young actress, and she delivers all of the stubborn desperation required of the fourteen-year-old protagonist. I don't know how she landed in the Supporting category of the Oscars, (well, I do, but age and politics are silly reasons), but she earned her nomination. Her bartering scenes with Stonehill are enough for that.

Much has been said about the film's epilogue. I don't think it was entirely necessary, but I don't think it fell flat, either. As an attempt to remain faithful to the story told in the book, it performed its job, and following the climax's heroic rescue, it was a blunt reminder of the dull turn life eventually takes.

But this film is the story of Mattie rebuking that fate, at least for a short while, as she takes on an unconventional journey in the hope of injecting a dose of poetic justice to her world. Along the way, we're left to explore a world stripped bare of such justice, where promises go unkept and deaths unanswered for. It's beautiful filmmaking; I'm still surprised it lost the Academy Award for Cinematography. The Coen brothers brought their affinity for dark comedy and witty dialogue and inserted it into a stunning Western landscape, returning life to a genre well traveled and a time long buried.