Susan Granger’s review of “The Homesman” (Roadside Attractions/Saban Films)
If you thought Tommy Lee Jones’ “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” (2005) was bizarre, it’s tame compared with his second Western in the director’s chair.
Two-time Oscar-winner Hilary Swank stars as Mary Bee Cuddy, a pious 1850s pioneer, unkindly described as “plain as a tin pail.” Which is why, she says, “I live uncommonly alone.”
A self-sufficient spinster, Mary Bee volunteers to transport three wailing, often hysterical young wives (Grace Gummer, Mirando Otto, Sonja Richter) who have gone insane from the hardships of frontier life in the Nebraska Territories. Driving a converted covered wagon with barred windows, she’s to deliver them to a parish in Hebron, Iowa, where they’ll be properly cared for. Almost immediately, Mary Bee realizes she’ll need assistance, which is why she rescues George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones), a claim-jumping scoundrel, from the hangman’s noose after he promises to do whatever she asks. Accepting her offer of $300, Briggs grudgingly agrees to accompany her on the difficult, dangerous journey.
As resilient, resourceful Mary Bee Cuddy, Hilary Swank effectively embodies feminism in the mid-nineteenth century, valiantly coping with emotional and psychological alienation and isolation, while director/writer/actor Tommy Lee Jones confounds and consistently surprises as ornery, taciturn Briggs.
Plus, there are indelible cameos from James Spader, as an inhospitable hotelier; John Lithgow, as the earnest preacher; Tim Blake Nelson, as a repulsive drifter; and Meryl Streep, as a kindly churchwoman. (FYI: Grace Gummer is Meryl Streep’s real-life daughter.)
Scripted with bleak, if poetic eloquence as an episodic road saga by Jones with co-writers Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley A. Oliver, it’s based on Glendon Swarthout’ s 1988 novel, which was originally optioned by Paul Newman. Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto vividly captures the forbidding inner and outer landscape, as does Marco Beltrami’s piano-and-string score. But nothing prepares you for the devastating plot twist that comes close to the end.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Homesman” is a sturdy, understated 7. Or, as one wag said, it’s No Country for Crazy Women.
