The Homesman

The Homesman - Dir. Tommy Lee Jones (2014)

Judging by outward appearances, Tommy Lee Jones doesn't seem to be a jolly old fellow. No surprise that Jones has chosen rather dour material for his directorial efforts. His first film as director, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, was a somber modern-day Western about a rancher making his way to Mexico with the corpse of a ranch hand and the Border Agent who killed him. You could hardly call Jones' sophomore feature, The Homesman, a traditional Western. Sure, the period is appropriate, but white hats don't shoot it out with black hats and the hero doesn't triumphantly ride off into the sunset.

The Homesman takes place during the mid-1800's in the desolate territory now known as Nebraska. Life has been harsh, especially for three women driven insane by the rigors of the frontier and an overbearing patriarchal society. Arabella Sours (Grace Gummer) hasn't even hit her 20's and has already lost her three children to diphtheria. Gro Svendsen (Sonja Richter) went mad due to the death of her mother and repeated sexual abuse by her husband. Theoline Bellknapp (Miranda Otto) suffered such a nervous breakdown that she does something unthinkable. In the movie's most harrowing moment, Theoline stumbles towards an outhouse and tosses her newborn infant into the latrine.

The burgeoning town is hardly equipped to handle this pitiable trio, but a church in Iowa has agreed to care for them. When it's clear their husbands are either unable or unwilling to take them, Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank) volunteers to embark on the journey. Perhaps, she feels a kinship to these women as she hides her own crushing loneliness. Cuddy is 31 and unwed, making her a spinster in everyone's eyes. She's been sharply turned down for marriage because she's too "bossy" and too "plain."

As strong-willed as she is, Mary Bee knows she cannot make the trip on her own. Due to happenstance, she comes across George Briggs (Jones), a buffoonish claim jumper left to hang. Briggs agrees not so much out of chivalry, but to get out of the noose along with $300 and a jug of whiskey.

The Homesman was based on a novel by Glendon Swarthout, who also wrote The Shootist, which was adapted into a film starring a grizzled John Wayne in what would be his final role. Of course, Jones brings grizzled to a whole new level. He's not exactly the most amiable of travel partners. The prim and proper Mary Bee does not end up falling for the gruff Briggs the way Katherine Hepburn did with Bogart in The African Queen. In fact, The Homesman never goes where you expect. The protagonists and their charges are outsiders in a rigid culture. They don't find redemption, happiness or sanity.

Jones turns in a fine performance that goes beyond his trademark surliness. He is able to go to dark place while playing the buffoon. Swank's success ratio hasn't been that spectacular, but her work in The Homesman ranks right up there with Million Dollar Baby and her breakout role in Boys Don't Cry. It's a fierce and heartbreaking performance.

The Homesman has been called an anti-western and a feminist revision of the genre. Jones' sophomore effort certainly has more in common with the existentialism of McCabe and Mrs. Miller and the beautiful bleakness of No Country for Old Men. He unravels the romanticism of the Old West by presenting its ugliness without restraint. One of the more underrated films of 2014.

Rating: *** ½ (*****)

War Horse

War Horse - Dir. Steven Spielberg (2011)

It's been three years since Steven Spielberg's last directorial effort in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. He returned with a vengeance at the end of 2011 with his two latest pictures hitting theaters within days of each other. They couldn't be any more different. The first was The Adventures of Tintin, a kinetic boys' adventure utilizing the latest in motion capture animation and released in 3D. The other, War Horse, is an old-fashioned epic shot in 35mm that references numerous Hollywood classics.

War Horse is based on a 1982 children's novel by Michael Morpurge, which was adapted into an award-winning stage play in 2007. Spielberg attended a show and was inspired to turn it into a movie with help from screenwriters Richard Curtis (Bridget Jones' Diary, Love Actually) and Lee Hall (Billy Elliot). Each permutation chronicles the events of World War I as seen through the eyes of a courageous horse.

The film opens in Dover, England with Albert Narracott (Jeremy Irvine) enraptured by a newly born colt. Albert lives in a farmhouse with his mother Rose (Emily Watson) and father Ted (Peter Mullan), a Boer War veteran trying to wash away his traumatic memories with alcohol. Ted rashly purchases the colt for triple his worth mainly to spite his overbearing landlord (David Thewlis), who rightly points out that the horse is too small to plow fields. It was born for show, not work. However, a determined Albert bonds with the newly named Joey and gets him to plow their rocky land. When a rainstorm washes away their crops, Ted has no choice but to sell Joey to the British army in order to pay their overdue rent.

Joey is put into the care of Captain Nicholls (Tom Hiddleston) and marches into battle alongside Maj. Stewart (Benedict Cumberbatch) and his black stallion Topthorn. After a failed charge against a German regiment, the horses are put into the care of two underage boys, Gunther (David Kross from The Reader) and Michael (Leonard Carow) serving in that same unit. From there, Joey and Topthorn wind up in the possession of an ailing French farm girl (Celine Buckens) and her doting grandfather (Niels Arestrup). Meanwhile, Albert enlists in the military as soon as he comes of age hoping to be reunited with his beloved friend.

War Horse represents Steven Spielberg at his best and his worst. It is an extremely well-crafted film gorgeously shot by Janusz Kaminski. The visuals are impeccable with numerous striking shots that capture the horrors of war and the beauty of the era. War Horse begins in an idyllic countryside that Spielberg has accentuated and romanticized in the way John Ford did with the countries of Wales in How Green Was My Valley and Ireland in The Quiet Man. The film culminates with a beautiful shot of silhouetted figures against a blazing orange sunset ala Gone with the Wind. Another shot features a battlefield strewn with the corpses of soldiers and horses which also recalls that same picture.

Spielberg can't help but go for the jugular when it comes to the film's most emotional moments. No heartstring is safe as Spielberg puts children and animals in peril in an attempt to wring every tear from every eye in the audience. If you didn't know how to feel about a certain scene, John Williams' overwhelming and hammy score will make sure to tell you. One of the best sequences in War Horse is an episode where Joey runs over and through the British trenches and gets tangled up by barbed wire in no man's land. One soldier from both sides declares a temporary truce to cut him loose. It's a touching moment, but Spielberg can't end the scene without the German calling Joey a "remarkable horse." This is a point Spielberg feels needs to be hammered home every fifteen minutes.

The acting is solid with Spielberg putting together an excellent cast of English and European thespians. Jeremy Irvine doesn't make much of an impression as Albert and he tends to overplay it during the more emotional moments. Tom Hiddleston and Benedict Cumberbatch turn in solid performances as the stiff upper lip British officers. The best performance in the film belongs to Peter Mullen as Albert's defeated father. Mullen probably isn't familiar to most American audiences, but he's appeared in darker, powerhouse roles in The Red Riding Trilogy and Paddy Considine's directorial debut Tyrannosaur.

War Horse attempts to be a treatise on the brutality of war as well as an uplifting family friendly drama and Spielberg has a difficult time blending the two. The episodic nature means the tone changes from All Quiet on the Western Front to National Velvet without notice. Maybe I'm cynical, but Spielberg's saccharine sentimentality didn't play well with me.

Rating: ** ½ (*****)