True Grit (2010, USA)

I am an unabashed Coen fan, even if I’m not a completist (speak to me not of The Ladykillers, for not even J.K. Simmons can entice me). They are almost unrivaled in contemporary American cinema for their attention to detail when evoking a particular time and place – and while this talent works to the benefit of True Grit, I can’t help but wonder if it doesn’t hold the film back a bit, too. Everything in True Grit feels real, from the performances – Jeff Bridges disappearing almost entirely into Rooster Cogburn, Hailee Steinfeld standing up admirably to both Bridges and Matt Damon, the almost unrecognizable Barry Pepper (possibly dirtier than in Battlefield Earth) – to the costumes, the whiskers, and the stark environs of where the Southwest meets the Midwest (with Texas standing in for Arkansas). But as much as I liked True Grit – and it was one of the more enjoyable couple of hours I’ve had at the movies this year – I couldn’t help feeling that it was missing something propulsive, something that would break it out of its shell. The fault I find most frequently with the Coens is not that they are mean-spirited towards their characters, which I’ve never really beleieved, but that their filmmaking style sometimes leans towards the clinical, the academic. Perhaps if they were a little sloppier, their films would have a bit more passion.