Maybe it was the mood I was in, but Joel and Ethan Coen’s re-adaptation of Charles Portis’ novel 1969 novel TRUE GRIT didn’t strike me as compelling or original, a particular disappointment when it comes to the usual high expectations for the latest  Coen Brothers movie. Not that I’m any special fan of Henry Hathaway’s 1969 version with John Wayne, or its sequel, the even more mediocre ROOSTER COGBURN (Stuart Millar, 1975). Neither of them did good service to Portis’ highly original story and narrative voice, that of a 14 year old girl in 1870s Arkansas hell bent on revenge for her father’s death. She is played in with steely determination in the current edition by newcomer Hailee Steinfeld, a young actress with a future – the Coens found her in LA after a nationwide talent search. I do admit to having a soft spot in my heart for the older version of the character portrayed 40 years ago by Kim Darby, who worked well with a gruff John Wayne almost on his last legs – yet the tireless Duke made another 11 films after seeming to give it his all in his run-in with a young Robert Duvall in his TRUE GRIT (1969). Jeff Bridges tries to growl his way through one of Wayne’s signature roles, relying heavily on his eye patch and a cigar, which is never a good sign. It isn’t funny to see Bridges trying to play the Dude on horseback, even if the protagonist’s state of mind relies on a similar alteration of reality, in this instance via booze and cigars rather than pot. Still, Portis’ semi-precious prose works perfectly with the Coens’ aesthetic of “the hard boiled dialogue,” channeled through Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and tailored to the 1920s Midwest in MILLER’S CROSSING (1990), 1930s Hollywood in (BARTON FINK, 1991) and Santa Rosa, California in THE MAN WHO WASN’T THERE (2001). Now they transplant it to the still Wild West, so characters speak how Mark Twain writes, and proper elocution is the hallmark of civilization. Portis and the Coens send Steinfeld off on kind of a picaresque, Candide-like adventure with Bridges and Matt Damon, a Texas Ranger also hunting the killer. It’s not quite Dorothy and friends on the Yellow Brick Road in THE WIZARD OF OZ (Victor Fleming, 1939) – in typically perverse Coen Brothers’ fashion, Steinfeld seems on a date with Death -- it motivates her, surrounds her and at one point, an unsettling scene with our protagonist upside down in a cave filled with snakes, seems to await her. All this is beautifully shot as usual by the Coens’ stalwart collaborator Roger Deakins, who no doubt will once again be cheated out of an Academy Award for Best Cinematography, although no other Western can approach the photographic artistry of Deakins’ masterpiece, THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD (Andrew Dominik, 2007). The editing is again by the fictional Roderick Jaynes, a private joke for the Coens that almost caused a crisis at the Academy Awards when they designated Albert Finney to impersonate Jaynes if he won. It won’t be an issue this year, since the pacing of TRUE GRIT (2010) is surprisingly sluggish for a Coens’ film – they linger over the period a bit too lovingly and lengthily, and it slows the movie down. Matt Damon is, as always, quietly effective although he seems a little unsure exactly what tone to adopt, and he’s not alone – I shared the same confusion. Is this Coen Brothers’ postmodernism, the American western as period violent comedy? Or is this a sincere depiction of a young woman’s need to set the world right and see the guilty suffer? Josh Brolin is a bit of a grizzled surprise as the pursued party, who is so stupidly proud of his dumb act of murder that he hastens his own demise. Thankfully he’s not around long enough to do the kind of damage he already wreaked this year on YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER (Woody Allen, 2010, Movie a Day Blog December, 2010) and JONAH HEX (Jimmy Hayward, 2010). Sometimes the updated TRUE GRIT reminded me more of 3 GODFATHERS (John Ford, 1948), another John Wayne film that reworked a story of three gruff cowboys reluctantly adopting and raising a female baby made at least five different times between 1916 and now, although Ford’s is by far the best version. The essential theme is mothering an abandoned child until it can take care of itself, and that’s the only real business occupying the characters as their wend their way in pursuit of Brolin and his confederates, led by the versatile Barry Pepper. This is certainly a valid basis for a very professionally made Coen Bros. film, but it seems to fall into the same red zone as THE LADYKILLERS (2004). When the Coens are too faithful to their source material, they get bogged down by their own admiration and unconscious imitation of the original. (There are exceptions, like the spot-on adaptation of NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN (2007).)  When the Coens create their own off-the-wall and self-conscious tales of the interior imagination, their work is liberated and mysterious. There is no mystery in this TRUE GRIT.

Dir.: Ethan, Joel Coen, 2010. 110 mins. Paramount Pictures, Skydance Prods. Produced by Scott Rudin, Coens. Screenplay by Coens, based on novel by Charles Portis. Cinematography by Roger Deakins. Edited by Roderick Jaynes. Production design by Jess Gonchor. Music by Carter Burwell. With Jeff Bridges, Hailee Steinfeld, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, Barry Pepper, Paul Rae, Domhnall Gleeson, Roy Lee Jones, Leon Russom, Bruce Green, Ed Corbin. Viewed on 35mm film theatrically.