It's rare for a director to be able to do what he or she wants all the time and get a sizable enough audience to watch their work. Most directors have to lower their standards, for at least one film, to get what they want done. A great example is Steven Soderbergh, one of the most independent directors in the country. He's made some unique movies, including a two-part epic about Che Guevara, a slowly paced remake of a Russian science-fiction film, and a 90-minute slice-of-life drama featuring no trained actors. He's also the capable helmer of the Ocean's trilogy of heist movies. Soderbergh can, almost like flipping a switch, change from being a studio director to being a personal director very quickly.
By now, most of the singular directors from the 1990s are becoming more ensconced in the studio system. David Fincher, two years ago, directed what was--to me, mind you--essentially a new version of Forrest Gump and was clearly most interested in the visual aspects of the story, as opposed to the story itself. This year, he directed the superlative The Social Network. It's a great movie, but with the notable exception of the greatest digital effect to ever appear in a movie (that would be making one actor--Armie Hammer--into twin brothers), Fincher's directorial stamp isn't as evident as in past works. David O. Russell, a notoriously unfriendly director, helmed The Fighter (still not seen by me), a movie which, by all counts, looks pretty conventional. While Darren Aronofsky just directed the amazing Black Swan, his next project is the next movie about Wolverine from X-Men.
Some directors have merged sensibilities--Christopher Nolan makes mainstream successes out of very complex projects--but only a few directors have escaped the studio system up until now. So it's pretty weird to watch True Grit, the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, the writing and directing duo who brought us Fargo, No Country For Old Men, Raising Arizona, and other quirky, inventive, film-buff-ready movies. True Grit, despite a few very weird touches (one such instance made more than a few other audience members actually say, "What the fuck?"), is the most mainstream, conventional film the Coens have ever made. I wouldn't say this is a serious concern for anyone worrying that these two have finally sold out. But by and large, partly because of the source material they've chosen, True Grit is a movie that mass audiences can get behind, and...it's also for the whole family.
Yeah, a Coen movie for the whole family sounds weird, but there it is. Not only is the movie, appropriately, rated PG-13, but it's a movie that kids would probably get a kick out of. I haven't read the Charles Portis novel that the film is based on, but either the Coens completely changed it to fit their sensibilities--though to a very minimal extent--or they're a perfect fit. I'm guessing it's the latter. The plot is not just simple for the Coens, it's just simple. Again, no complaining here, but there aren't nearly as many complications here as there have been in previous films. Mattie Ross is a 14-year old girl who's traveled to Fort Smith, Arkansas to collect the remains of her recently murdered father and exact revenge on the man who killed him. For the latter, she enlists a drunken, mean, grumpy U.S. Marshal to bring the murderer to justice, and is accompanied by a Texas Ranger who's also on the hunt for the killer, though for a different crime.
In some ways, working with source material that isn't as complex as their previous films gives the Coens full measure to have a lot of fun in creating a great Western in the 21st century that hearkens back to the Westerns from Howard Hawks and John Ford. Though their touch isn't as clear as in their previous works, the Coens work magic once again with their cinematographer, Roger Deakins (who has never won an Oscar, which is insane), to create yet another beautiful, spare, yet expansive vision of the Midwest just after the Civil War ended. Most notably, the film reunites the Coens with Jeff Bridges, who played the title role in 1998's The Big Lebowski, a very funny shaggy-dog take on the film noir. Bridges is light-years away from The Dude here, bringing to life Rooster Cogburn, the grouchy lawman who Mattie sees as the man for the job, because people tell her he has "true grit," the kind of no-nonsense quality that will make him unsympathetic to any criminal. Bridges can add Cogburn to the list of his memorable characters; Cogburn manages to seem singular in being drunk, but also being very clever.
The adults in this movie, though, all kind of play second fiddle to Hailee Steinfeld, the newcomer who portrays Mattie, the ostensible lead character of the film. Mattie is a humorless, unemotional, determined, and dogged character and Steinfeld possesses those qualities in earnest. In a key moment early on, proving how much she refuses to be left behind on the journey, Mattie has to ride her horse across a river; there's never a moment there or anywhere else in the film that rings false for Steinfeld. The story of how the Coens found her--the old "thousands of kids auditioned for the role, and here's who we cast" tale--isn't surprising, but it's genuinely charming to watch Steinfeld face off with Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and character actor Dakin Matthews (her confrontation with the latter in the first 20 minutes is a high point) and get the better of all of them.
It should come as no surprise that Damon and Brolin are great here, though the latter isn't in that much of the movie. Damon plays La Boeuf (pronounced "La Beef"), the arrogant young Texas Ranger who assumes that his way is the best, even if he hasn't thought things through. His constant bickering with Cogburn provides plenty of humor throughout the middle portion of the film. What's best about the film--aside from the many excellent sequences, including a climax that is just what you want from a good, old-fashioned Western--is that there's never any spelling out. We know by the end of the film that La Boeuf and Cogburn see Mattie as an adult, just like either of them. We never need to be told this, but we just know it. We know that the movie is about Mattie growing up into the mature middle-aged woman who narrates the film's opening and ending scenes. But we don't need to be told so.
Again, that may be partly thanks to the source material, but the Coens are smart enough to assume the audience is intelligent. One easy pitfall the movie avoids is making Cogburn a very obvious father figure for Mattie, who may want one after losing her real dad. Cogburn performs heroic acts in the film, but there's never anything melodramatic about these deeds. They are as plain and clear as he is. True Grit may not be the best film the Coens have ever made--and some people may have hoped that, with Bridges and Brolin returning to work with the directors, it would be--but it is the most entertaining and cinematic, following in a long line of truly filmic works. If anything, the best thing I can say about True Grit is that the Coen brothers have finally made a genre film without mocking its conventions. Instead of openly skewering Westerns, the Coens have made a rollicking and exciting addition to the canon.
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