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Nov 13, 2014 By Stephen Danay Web Exclusive

In 1850s Nebraska Territory, the town of Loup is recovering from a brutal winter. The tolls of frontier life have driven three women beyond the brink of madness, and they must be brought east to receive proper care. Undertaking the treacherous five week journey is Mary Bee Cutty, a local farmer and spinster, and George Briggs, a cantankerous old claim jumper unwillingly drafted into her service.

The third directorial effort by star and co-writer Tommy Lee Jones, The Homesman is by turns a post-modern western, a tragic portrait of historical feminism, and an odd-couple odyssey in the vein of The African Queen. While the film works as a series of scenes and ideas, it fails to cohere into a satisfying whole.

The crux of the film would seem to be the suffering of the protagonist’s three charges as expressed through the character of Mary Bee, who faces her own hardships based on her gender and situation. Playing—as she too often does—an unimpeachable saint, Hilary Swank nonetheless brings the necessary grit and charm to a character that has the potential to be a serious drag. The juxtaposition of Mary Bee’s fears at growing old alone alongside her singleminded desire to help a group of women who have suffered far more than she has, is an innovative thesis for a film working within such a traditionally masculine genre. This makes it all the more disappointing when the film makes an abrupt third act shift that establishes Jones’s character as the true protagonist.

Although Tommy Lee Jones refreshingly attempts to shed his usual aura of hyper-competent, stone-faced gruffness—Briggs is both a short-sighted jackass and more than a bit of a goofball—his decision to jettison Swank’s character’s arc for his own leaves The Homesman looking suspiciously like a vanity project. The film looks great and its heart is in the right place, but it ultimately falls into a rut of cynicism and brutality that feels unearned and unnecessary.

thehomesmanfilm.com

Author rating: 4/10