The Homesman (2014)

Film: The Homesman (2014)
Stars: Tommy Lee Jones, Hilary Swank, Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto, Sonja Richter, Meryl Streep, John Lithgow, James Spader, Hailee Steinfeld
Director: Tommy Lee Jones
Oscar History: No nominations
Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Hilary Swank and I have not had what one would consider a harmonious relationship.  I have never seen Boys Don't Cry (as she won an Oscar for it, I'll clearly get there with the OVP someday, but no, this is a gaping miss in recent Oscar history for me) and was not a huge fan of Million Dollar Baby (I will probably enjoy it a bit more on re-watch, but I will never understand how she managed to defeat Winslet, Staunton, or Bening that year, let alone all three).  I also distinctly recall not being wild about the way that she ended her relationship with Chad Lowe, speaking out of turn against him, which I usually find a bit off-putting when she had already started a relationship before the divorce and when she's on the cover of Vanity Fair discussing the breakup.

However, Swank has grown on me through the years as a person, though as an actress her wilderness period following her second Oscar has been perplexing (she frequently gets compared to Sally Field in this regard, but Field just stopped being nominated for Oscars-she didn't stop making hits).  She's clearly someone who has a deep respect for her characters and contributing something to the film community (and she has an appreciation for film history and for the arts, which comes across during her interviews, which have been far more professional in the wake of the Vanity Fair story).  She's also someone who has a certain awareness of the role of her celebrity (that Ramzan Kadyrov scandal clearly had an affect), and has become a very strong advocate for women.  I've been itching, in fact, to bury the proverbial hatchet with Swank for a while now, and thankfully Tommy Lee Jones gave me that opportunity with The Homesman.  While the film has tonal problems and an uneven story focus, Swank is back in fine form here-the best she's been since Million Dollar Baby, and the best I've ever seen her.

(Spoilers Ahead) The film, based on the novel by Glendon Swarthout (yes, the same guy who wrote the novel Where the Boys Are), tells the story of Mary Bee Cuddy, a woman who lives "uncommonly alone" in the Nebraska prairie, isolated from most of the world and perpetually single and lonely.  The opening scene is her basically begging a neighbor to marry her, then cruelly being turned down when he called her too bossy and too plain to be his bride.  Cuddy is a woman who clearly has regrets about her move from a New York schoolhouse to the open prairie, but is too ingrained in her faith and the belief that "god will provide" to contradict him by moving back home (plus she's too invested in the community).

Through a series of men ducking out of their duties to their wives, she is entrusted to move three women, gone crazy with "prairie madness" across the wilderness, initially by herself but eventually with the help of a claim jumper named George Briggs (Jones).  As the film progresses, their initial friction, like it so often does in the movies, moves into admiration, and eventually respect.  Though it never seems to be that of a romantic love, a platonic love eventually emerges between the two.

The film is at its best when it is focused on learning about Swank's character.  Jones the director is, for the most part, smart enough to keep the focus on her, and if that had been the true point of the movie, we'd have added a couple of stars up-top.  Swank manages to make Mary Bee someone who is difficult to like but hard to explain why.  She's clearly had an incredibly rigid life, and has been hardened by the constant rejection of society and the men around her.  We see that in the way that the village ladies titter on about her.  I loved the way that she says, "uncommonly alone," a phrase we haven't heard earlier in the film but you can tell that Mary Bee has heard her entire adult life.  Her sympathy for the women is remarkable-it's hard for someone to come across so genuine and earnest and still believable in the movies-it's a difficult trick to not make the person appear fake or without any sort of qualms about their belief system, and that carries through to the end of her journey.

The movie also isn't shy about making Swank feel things that are deeply uncomfortable onscreen.  The reality is that while the audience knows initially the viciousness of the lives of the women who are being trucked across the country, they don't immediately recognize the mental anguish that depression and loneliness have done to Mary Bee.  We see that toward the end when she finally gives her virginity away, worried that that may be the only way that she can find a man, and then (I wasn't kidding about those spoiler alerts!) kills herself for shame and based on the reality that she will never be loved.  It's a harsh performance from Swank, who eschews vanity and downplays her loveliest features (those brown eyes) to play a "plain" woman, and isn't afraid to play into the loneliness, a difficult emotion to put onscreen, and make us feel horrible for judging her earlier.  In many ways it recalled Lesley Manville's excellent work in Another Year a few years back-both women are desperate to find a way to make love fit into their world, and both cannot seem to find it while it comes so easily to others.

There's a reason, of course, that I gave the film two stars, and that's Tommy Lee Jones, both as an actor and as a director.  While the self-involved, morally-bankrupt character that he plays is something that Jones, a longtime veteran of the screen, could do in his sleep, he seems to not know what direction to take the character.  Swank is able to make subtle shifts in her character, a woman so wanting for affection that she eventually sacrifices everything she believes in in its pursuit, but we don't ever really know Briggs-he's just a prop to reflect Mary Bee, and as a result, the moments after Mary Bee's death ring hollow.  I HATED the scene with James Spader, as it was clearly trying to aid a subplot we hadn't really explored properly to that point (that Jones is now a good man rejected by society), and Spader is such a hammy, over-baked actor (I honestly don't know if there's a name I groan louder over when I see it in the credits to a movie), and honestly the only person who can save the story is Meryl Streep, who has a remarkable cameo toward the end of the film, landing the "reject Briggs" story (notice how quickly she wants him on his way, despite clearly celebrating the man's actions), speaking toward the class and rank of her position as the preacher's wife, and only hinting at genuine awe toward what these women had to endure.  Streep's character is clearly well-researched and thought-out, never being without an idea of what to say, and being deeply practiced in what her character would do in this situation, only straying from it for mere moments.

The film also has a serious tonal problem that Jones should have nipped in the bud.  This is a deeply serious film, and didn't need comic bits in its course such as Jones dancing and drinking, and could have been far more successful being a straight drama and perhaps giving more background or growth to the three women, who become interchangeable (seriously-I had trouble keeping Miranda Otto's and Grace Gummer's stories apart in particular) throughout the movie.  By making the audience laugh when it doesn't want to-that made the ending seem more about Jones' Briggs than about Mary Bee, and that's a crime in a film where Swank towers over Jones in terms of performance.

Those were my thoughts on this film-what are yours?  Do you feel that this is Swank's best work in a decade?  Do you think she'll gain an Oscar nomination for it?  And do you wish that Jones would perhaps leave behind the director's chair going forward?  Share in the comments!