The Coen brothers decided a long time ago that they weren’t going to make a bad film. From Blood Simple (1984) to their newest film True Grit (2010), everything has been instantly watchable and full of memorable characters and dialogue. In these 26 years they’ve even managed to create some future classics; Miller’s Crossing (1990) and Fargo (1996) being the two that recurrently stand out.
Often their films look at those areas of society slightly left of normal. Their characters are the same, all with unique idiosyncrasies that the Coen’s subtlety highlights so well. No one creates realistic and at the same time abstract worlds populated with such unique characters as well as the Coen brothers. The above statement illustrates an oxymoron, yet so many of their characters are similarly incongruous. Fargo’s Marge Gunderson, a pregnant police office hunting serial killers or Burn After Reading’s bumbling, sex craved Harry Pfarrer.
The nature of their films, their worlds and their characters has resulted in an inimitable directorial style. The Coen’s observe the worlds they create. They penetrate the under and upper classes of these worlds and develop several layers, but they never let us become part of that world; we are never asked to put ourselves in the place of the characters. We can watch and visit, but are not allowed or invited to stay. Like the Coen brothers, we are voyeurs, visitors only to the theatre on show. As memorable as their characters are, their style results in emotional detachment. This is usually not an issue as their worlds are best visited only. However, in True Grit we have the most straightforward of Coen films. There are no double crosses or mistaken identities, just a simple, linear narrative with their usual deft handling of character. Unlike other films though the lead character, Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) is a character worth investing more of our emotion in; her father, recently killed, weighs on her mind as she hunts his killer while unknowingly seeking a surrogate father in the shape of a soon to be extinct cowboy. Like all Coen films, True Grit does not ask us to connect on a deep level with the characters and can leave us feeling cold. It is a shame because here, the characters of Ross and Jeff Bridges’ Rooster Cogburn take great steps together throughout the film.
True Grit is a wonderfully acted and directed story full of recognisable Coen traits. It is a western full of the genre’s conventions and fits into and compliments the Coen canon. If it leaves us feeling cold at the end, this is only because the Coen’s are letting us visit and not inviting us to stay.
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