Monday, December 27, 2010

True Grit, or, Jeff Bridges is Awesome

True Grit is a movie made up of pieces, which never quite come together to form a coherent whole. While each of its stars, Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon, and the charming Hailee Steinfeld, are great in their own roles, the roles themselves almost feel like they’re from three very different films – like the Coen Brothers couldn’t decide what kind of movie they were making.

Jeff Bridges, as the whiskey-soaked, gravelly Rooster Cogburn, hasn’t been this entertaining to watch since his turn as the Dude in another Coen Brothers piece. His performance is so gritty (if you’ll forgive my using the phrase) it almost leaves sand in your mouth – he’s rough, tough, and way past his prime. Watching him is like remembering the golden era of Western film, reminiscent of the gun-toting outlaws and town defending sheriffs. But he’s old, too, and more heart-breaking in his way than the tale of Mattie’s vengeance for her wrongfully slain father.

Let’s talk about Mattie: I don’t know where the Coens found Steinfeld, but she’s a treasure in this movie and I look forward to seeing her in future projects. Her Mattie Ross is self-possessed and righteous, quoting the law at anyone she perceives as standing wrongfully in her way. Her “good lawyer” back home does not feature bodily in the film, but pops up in almost all of her conversation. Steinfeld successfully brings to life Mattie’s precociousness and also her own illusions; that is, that wrongs will always be brought to right, and that the law will always triumph. Mattie has to learn some hard lessons about preconceived notions and, more importantly, about the way that people really work, but Steinfeld makes her believable.

Matt Damon’s Texas Ranger, Mr. LaBoeuf, is the wrong note in the film. I’ve never seen the original True Grit, so I don’t know how he played out in that version, but here LaBoeuf is played (wrongfully, I think) for laughs. He is too tight, too formal, too absurd. Damon is excellent in the role, but the role is wrong for the film.

That is the weak point of True Grit: it can’t decide if it wants to be serious, or if it wants to be absurd. And rather than becoming a serious film with moments of humor, it ends up as an emotionally weak film with moments of awkwardness. I never really felt the immediacy of Mattie’s problem; I was never invested in seeing her father’s killer brought to justice. The dialogue, which is mostly very smart, does distance the audience by occasionally becoming comically flat or tremendously melodramatic - no one uses contractions ("This scheme did not unfold like I had planned;" after cutting down a hanged man, "I do not know this man."). For a film all about family and justice and revenge, True Grit itself fell a little comically flat.