It's still rough out there for women.
The Homesman
Grade: B
Director: Tommy Lee Jones (The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada)
Screenplay: Jones, et al. from Wesley A. Oliver novel
Cast: Jones (Lincoln), Hilary Swank (Million Dollar Baby)
Rating: R
Runtime: 122 min.
by John DeSando
“Miss Cuddy. I appreciate the offer, the supper, the concert and all. But I cannot marry you, will not, won't. I ain't perfect but you are too bossy and too damn plain.” Bob Giffin (Evan Jones)
That piece of dialogue spoken to a decidedly attractive Hilary Swank as Mary Bee Cuddy (she can try to be plain, but that’s not possible), from the intense and interesting The Homesman, captures the plight of women who moved West in the 19th century: If they can survive, prosperity will be minimal or elusive; if they are plain and independent, then they will be alone as her Mary Bee Cuddy is.
The overall theme of the difficulties moving west is movingly depicted in writer/director Tommy Lee Jones’s film, which depicts Cuddy and seedy George Briggs (Jones) transporting three women who have lost their minds from the Nebraska Territory back East to a parsonage that can help them. In a way, it’s reverse Westward Ho and feminism, a testimony to the challenges women have always encountered, from infant deaths to abusive husbands and dim-witted single men (see the introductory quote).
As if to emphasize the thematic frustrations, Cuddy asks two men to marry her, both unworthy, and they both refuse (see quote). Heck, the same accomplished woman would have similar problems with men today who still see female ambition a danger. Jones has made that bridge to today a convincingly difficult journey—two steps forward, one step back.
Jones as actor is still hypnotically gruff and tough, a role he does better than any other actor I can think of. He played a younger rebellious ruffian in an adaptation of a Faulkner short story, Barn Burning, decades ago, and he is just as convincingly recalcitrant as an old man. When he and Swank face off, there is no doubt we are watching Oscar winners.
The Homesman is as slow sometimes as the wagon transporting the women. The dialogue is spare because Jones lets the barren Nebraska Territory do the talking about hardship. Although Briggs comes alive and likeable when he encounters some sybarites (including an unlikable James Spader) in a hotel east of nowhere, he is as always gruff on the outside with a warm interior well hidden until it is needed later on.
The set design is curiously antiseptic with authentic Victorian houses and primitive dirt homes, yet all clean as if kept by Shakers. However, it is a film about the passage of women, so their civilizing influence will be present but not as much as you might expect. It’s still rough out there whether the women are competent or crazy.
John DeSando, a Los Angeles Press Club first-place winner for National Entertainment Journalism, hosts WCBE’s It’s Movie Time and co-hosts Cinema Classics. Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.rr.com
