The appearance of “The Homesman”
suggests that despite its present state of debility, the Western, that grand
American form, still lives and breathes. This particular film, in fact,
demonstrates the versatility of the genre, its possibilities for change and
variation. It employs many of the traditional elements of its past, but handles
them in some unusual ways, demonstrating once again that special dynamic
between convention and invention, the source of so much appeal in any fixed or
even formulaic genre.
The story
takes place in Nebraska, judging by the weaponry at some point before the Civil
War, when Nebraska was still a territory (statehood came in 1867). Its simple
plot follows the pattern of hundreds of other movies, a perilous journey across
a vast, empty landscape, in this case moving Eastward instead of the
traditional Westward trek. It begins in one of those familiar little
settlements perched precariously on the edge of the frontier and ends in a
civilized, peaceful town in Iowa.
The journey,
however, differs from the familiar cattle drive or rescue mission or search for
villains; a resourceful young woman named Mary Bee Cuddy
(Hilary Swank) volunteers to transport three deranged wives to a church that
cares for the mentally ill. The women have descended into madness for varying
reasons, but mostly simply because of Nebraska, with its incessant winds
keening across the prairies, its emptiness, its loneliness.
Along the
way Mary Bee saves the life of an unsavory drifter (Tommy Lee Jones) on the
condition that he helps her on the trek.ย
Naturally, during the journey the two of them meet a number of difficulties,
including encounters with Indians and outlaws; despite a good deal of friction,
the two of them also reach a kind of accommodation.
In many
ways, again departing from its familiar paths, “The Homesman”
constitutes something like a Western of despair. Reversing the expected outcome
of the journey and the relationship, the odd couple never really reaches any
sort of romantic connection or even any genuine reconciliation. Like a previous
man in her life, Briggs tells Mary Bee that she is “too plain and too bossy.”
(In reality, I suspect a capable woman with her own farm on that godforsaken
frontier would be a most desirable mate.)
In keeping with its traditions, the
movie provides moments of violence, not all of them entirely justified; Briggs
for example exacts a terrible revenge on a hotel keeper and his employees for
denying him and the women food and shelter. It also shows that even the
strongest person in the work, Mary Bee herself, can succumb to a kind of
existential despair, a most unusual concept in a Western. That despair,
ironically in effect both drives and eventually almost permeates the
narrative.ย ย
Although
supported in secondary parts by such actors as John Lithgow, James Spader, and Meryl Streep, the picture belongs to Hilary
Swank and Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed. Both of them play determinedly
unglamorous, unheroic people who find themselves encountering more difficulty
and danger than they had anticipated and somehow winning against long odds. The
camera never softens Swank’s masculine features and she never allows herself
even a moment of beauty or even repose, maintaining her character’s resolute
plainness and anger throughout.
Grizzled,
his face seamed by experience and even sadness, Jones steadfastly also
maintains a consistently unheroic character throughout; he underplays even his
best moments and never allows the criminal drifter George Briggs to appear
likable. Though not the usual Western character, however, he follows a familiar
pattern, not the ritual of manhood that the form depends on, but something like
a growth in humanity — he fails to become a good person, but at least becomes a
better person.
Perhaps most
satisfying to students of the form, “The Homesman,”
despite its avoidance of some of the expected formulas and devices, still
exhibits some of the important elements blessed by tradition, its own versions
of the bath, the dance, the poker game, subjects very few Westerns neglect. The
director also uses the necessary panorama shots, images of a wide expanse of
empty prairie, with a lone rider in the distance, suggesting the bleak
emptiness of a harsh landscape and the insignificance of its inhabitants, a
country of despair as much as hope.
Adam Lubitow also saw “The Homesman.” For his take on the film, click here.
This article appears in Dec 3-9, 2014.
