Film File - True Grit

In 1968, that iconic American publishing institution, the Saturday Evening Post, published a serialised novel that gripped the entire country with its simple and powerful theme. 'True Grit', by Charles Portis, was the tale of a determined young girl seeking to avenge her father's murder in the company of a washed-up lawman and a forthright Texas Ranger who set out into Indian territory to find the killer. Glowing with well-drawn characters and peppered with deadpan humour, the novel became an American legend almost overnight as the story of this mismatched combination gripped readers as they embarked on their journey into a dangerous and uncertain world. Like the characters themselves, the story crossed a boundary into the world of myth, becoming both a bestseller and an enduring literary classic, passed from reader to reader down through the decades. The book was soon being taught in schools, and became a 1969 movie starring John Wayne, with the title woven into the very fabric of the language. The words 'true grit' came to represent the kind of single-minded, cocksure gutsiness that can see a person through incomprehensible circumstances. Narrated by an unsentimental spinster that the young girl becomes in the wake of her escapade, it also probed the restlessness of the American character, with its conflicts between the yearning for adventure and the need for home, between the desire to right injustices and the cost of such retribution to body and soul. The characters of Mattie, Rooster Cogburn and LaBoeuf clash not just with each other and the outlaws they're after, but also “with their own hearts as they veer between the untamed and the righteousâ€. The Coen brothers were drawn to the idea of placing an irrepressible young girl at the centre of a tale punctuated with brutality and the harsh reality of life on the frontier, a situation they likened to “Alice in Wonderland because this 14 year-old girl finds herself in an environment that's so exoticâ€. The screenplay stays faithful to the original novel, keeping Mattie Ross (Hailee Stanfield) at its centre throughout and bringing her full circle as a tough spinster searching for Rooster Cogburn (Jeff Bridges) in a faded Memphis Wild West Show. After the murder of her father by Tom Chaney (Josh Brolin), the seemingly innocent Mattie Ross sets out to capture the killer by hiring the toughest US marshal she can find, a man with true grit, Reuben J Rooster Cogburn. They are joined by Texas Ranger LaBoeuf (Matt Damon), who has his own reasons for joining the hunt, as they sally forth into the harsh terrain of the Indian Nations. As usual, the Coens surround themselves with their faithful technical team - production designer Jess Gonchor, costume designer Mary Zophres, composer Carter Burwell and, most effectively in this instance, director of photography Roger Deakins. Enhancing the techniques so tellingly etched in 'No Country For Old Men' and 'The Assassination Of Jesse James', Deakins paints a vivid portrait of the Old West in everything from the breathtaking landscape to the leather saddles through a sepia-toned lens almost as effective as the characters themselves. Jeff Bridges, in his first re-teaming with the Coens' since 'The Big Lebowski' in 1998, owns the picture - and must surely be looking at another possible Oscar. The Coens are quick to say that the film is not, definitely not, another adaptation of the original 1969 film directed by Henry Hathaway with John Wayne in the only role that won him an Oscar. That said, comparisons are inevitable - as the original was also a fine film with the likes of Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper and Strother Martin on board. This one seems a certainty to become the definitive version, though, not just for Bridges' stellar rogue, but also for Damon, Steinfeld, Brolin and Barry Pepper as outlaw leader Lucky Ned - complete with eye-poppingly bad teeth. Our own Domhnall Gleeson also has a small but noticeable part. 'True Grit' is a terrific film, displaying a gutsy resilience that the Irish population is becoming well accustomed to at present. This is two hours in the dark that's well spent.