Dark haired and clear-eyed, Steinfeld convincingly conveys the character’s refusal to be deterred, without a trace of gamine-like coyness or girlish cuteness. “True grit” may be what she’s looking for in the man she selects to track down Chaney, but Mattie’s the one who has it in spades: she means-and does–what she says, and there’s not a patronizing man in the Old West who doesn’t learn the cost of misjudging her. Rooster’s one-man battle charge against four adversaries in a meadow is reproduced in almost identical fashion to the original film, although the Coens end their telling on a wistful note by reincorporating the book’s coda set in 1903, a quarter-century after the main action.Īlthough mostly divested of what, in the book, was her rigorously Christian outlook, Mattie is otherwise everything she’s meant to be in Steinfeld’s exceedingly accomplished performance. It doesn’t take long for Rooster to track down the baddies’ lairs, first at a cabin where some nasty mayhem ensues, then around a mountainside where the snaggletoothed Lucky Ned Pepper ( Barry Pepper) presides over scruffy gang that temporarily includes Chaney. After a while, it’s LaBoeuf who takes his leave after having proving oversensitive to Rooster’s bluster. At first shunned by her two companions, who stand to collect rewards if they bring Chaney to justice, Mattie simply won’t go away. For the audience, Mattie proves her mettle at the outset by completely having her way in negotiations with an experienced horse trader (fantastically well played by Dakin Matthews), thereby leaving no doubt that she’ll be more than able to hold her own with the imposing Rooster (whom she first confronts while he’s occupied in an outhouse), the condescending LaBoeuf (Damon) and even Chaney ( Josh Brolin) when she finally confronts him.Ĭontrasting with the original’s spectacular summer and early autumn Colorado mountain backdrops (the early town scenes were shot in Ridgeway, near Telluride), this time the journey moves from a bleached, dusty community into assorted wild stretches that eventually become inundated by the first snowy dustings of winter. Considerable character color is lost in the process, particularly where Rooster is concerned sure, Wayne did a fair share of broad mugging in his day, but that didn’t mean Bridges and the others had to steer clear of the sort of comic timing that would only have enriched the material and made it more entertaining this time around.īut the focus here is resolutely upon Mattie, a remarkably poised, self-confident and, it must be said, entirely humorless girl whose every move and decision is driven by her aim of tracking down Tom Chaney, the man who shot her father. Joel and Ethan Coen, while retaining some of Portis’ wordsmithing, have oddly decided to drain most of the comedy from inherently funny lines and situations. Marguerite Roberts put some perky, folksy spin on it four decades ago. To readers of Portis’ novel, which was a critical and commercial hit when published in 1968, the crackling, colloquial, often laugh-out-loud hilarious dialogue seemed almost ready-made for any screenwriter to more or less lift it intact. Startlingly, however, what the Coens have given up is humor. These represent major plusses for the new film, as screen newcomer Hailee Steinfeld makes an excellent Mattie and Matt Damon, from the moment of his laconic boots-on-a-porch rail entrance designed to recall Henry Fonda in “My Darling Clementine,” puts any thoughts of Glen Campbell immediately to rest. Two obvious fixes the Coens tended to at once were restoring the proper age of the female lead (Kim Darby was 20 when the first film was shot) and casting a strong actor to play the Texas Ranger who uncomfortably accompanies Rooster and little Mattie Ross into a land filled with fugitive outlaws and no-accounts.

True grit cast