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Rating: Tommy Lee Jones returns behind the camera after "Sunset Limited," a film for HBO based on the extraordinary play of the same name by Cormac McCarthy and nearly ten years after that little gem of a "modern western" known as "The Three Burials," a precursor to that modern-day chromaticization of the West later revisited by the Coen brothers in "No Country for Old Men," with dear Tommy Lee as the sheriff. With "The Homesman", we have his second direction for the big screen and a western set further back in time, in the mid-19th century.
Our Texan draws inspiration from a novel by Glendon Swarthout and tells the story of Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank), an unmarried handyman who volunteers to escort three mad women across the Missouri River to Iowa. A man's job for over 5 weeks of travel. She does what the men should have done but didn't. Right after the start, she saves George Briggs's (our Lee Jones) life. Gruff and ambiguous, he agrees to accompany the woman on this journey with the assurance of $300 at the end of the venture. And so off they go into the desolate expanses of central America.
Someone who has now reached the threshold of 70 years is inevitably linked to classic cinema and filming and staging times that are being lost today. This "old style" way of shooting emerges in all its simplicity in Jones's choices, which rely on fixed frames and few and slow camera movements, shunning various technicalities. "The Homesman" works masterfully in subtraction, stylistically and visually: basic locations, interiors set up with mid-19th-century simplicity, and a profusion of stretches and prairies. The West as it was, nothing more, nothing less. This simplicity deliberately clashes with a narrative that lacks the classicism of old genre films: zero train and bank robberies, no confrontation between law and bandits, no sheriff. None of this. We are faced with a dramatic work that uses the western more as a setting than as a narrative of that piece of history. The character played by Swank is the strong woman more similar to the modern woman, who surpasses man in what seem to be his typical duties. Resolute, strong, decisive, driven by a morality of solidarity derived from her Christian faith, Mary is the "hero" of "The Homesman" and dismantles the classic male figure that typically engulfs the genre. Next to her, the old George, one who occupies others' property, shoots blatant lies (hinting that he makes up the name George Briggs on the spot), and claims to have escaped from an American army squad. The script leaves this figure in chiaroscuro: it's unclear if George is truly the gruff screwball he seems to be or if deep down his hardened heart can feel emotions. The parabola seems to echo the Kowalski played by Eastwood in "Gran Torino." Someone who, by facing the reality of things, seems to put aside his prejudices.
The ambiguities, the unspoken things, the marginal but always present figures of the three mad women. It almost seems like "The Homesman" works in subtraction not only visually and formally but also in its ability to fully unravel its potential. The minimalism of the mise-en-scène and its being, for long stretches, a "western road movie" leaves the contradictions of various characters dormant, leaving them somewhat incomplete. The central phase of the film suffers the most from the reiteration of situations repeating without particular strength: scenes generally monotonous with only some memorable sequences here and there (such as Briggs's confrontation with the cowboy trying to take one of the mad women). A sort of racism toward the Indians also emerges, mentioned only when they steal a horse or are accused of stealing clothes from the dead (something our Briggs also does to an Indian). These potential "background" situations are barely touched upon because the focus remains on the journey to Iowa, which ends up being a brake that keeps dormant potentials unexpressed. Let's say "The Homesman" won't appeal to those looking for rhythm and variety.
Tommy Lee Jones's directorial work returns to the theme of the journey as self-discovery and ties back to the previous "The Three Burials," which it follows in structure, without managing to reach that dramatic and emotional charge. "The Homesman" is a mix of variants, including dark humor à la Coen brothers, time shades borrowed from Hawks, classical westerns, and modern visual exploration. There are no heroes and no salvation. It's the West. Tommy Lee Jones tells it with a multi-layered, self-contained, anti-spectacular cinema.
7.5
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