Andrew Haughey-
As the Academy Awards approach with ten movies competing for the Best Picture, True Grit is, without a doubt, the one to keep your eye on with an impressive twelve nominations! After the success of contemporary western No Country for Old Men back in 2007, the Coen Brothers’ decided it was time to make a classic western and that’s exactly what True Grit is.
The story is set in 1880 with 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) who embarks on an epic adventure filled with gun slingin’ cowboys, whisky and murdering outlaws. When Mattie learns of her father’s death, she hires the trigger friendly marshal Cogburn (played spectacularly by Jeff Bridges) to assist her to find the culprit and bring him to justice. What ensues is an almost comic relationship between a girl whose age spans beyond her years and a drunk “one-eyed fat man.”
Throughout the movie other characters are introduced such as Matt Damon’s Texas Ranger LaBoeuf whose heated arguments with Cogburn are genuine laugh-out-loud moments. LaBoeuf joins the duo in search of the infamous Tom Chaney who’s wanted in more than one state, and what’s interesting is each character wants to find Chaney for different reasons: Ross to seek justice for her father’s murder, Cogburn for the money, and LaBoeuf for the fame and glory and a possible promotion.
We follow these characters as the story progresses and watch as their relationship towards each other as a group or team evolves, truthfully with a lot of hesitation. While portraying the image of a classic western, the Coen brothers’ input into the movie, originally made in 1969, is very obvious. The brothers’ usual dark comedy (that they do so well) seeps through in one memorable line, “If you’d like to sleep in a coffin… it would be alright.”
True Grit is a truly magnificent experience. It managed to capture the true classic western style yet add something modern to it. Roger Deakins’ cinematography was truly mesmerising, going from beautiful landscape shots to the grand finale in which our last teary moment is captured during a snowy night.
What makes this movie such an undoubted success are the performances from the three main actors Bridges, Damon and Steinfeld. All three of them give the movie the right amount of humour, and the right amount of drama, so you’ll find yourself laughing at one point only to be taken over by a fit of tears ten minutes later.
Truly superb.
