Review: The Witch

Directed by Robert Eggers

Written by Robert Eggers

Starring Anya Taylor-Joy (Thomasin), Ralph Ineson (William), Kate Dickie (Katherine), Harvey Scrimshaw (Caleb), Ellie Grainger (Mercy), and Lucas Dawson (Jonas)

Cinematography by Jarin Blaschke

Edited by Louise Ford

Music by Mark Korven

 

Robert Eggers' new movie begins with a dark joke. The patriarch of the family that the film focuses on is banished from a 17th century New England community for being too Puritan for the Puritans. Set a few decades before the Salem Witch Trials, this is the first hint that The Witch has more on its mind than just scares, and will explore the religious thought, social attitudes, and mental state of the groups that were fleeing England for the New World. The rest of the family follows William's lead and sets out on a rickety wagon through shadowy woods, eventually stopping at a forest clearing. There William boastfully proclaims that they "will conquer this land". Of course, William's plans soon go awry when newborn Samuel disappears while Thomasin is playing peek-a-boo with him on the edge of the woods. From there, crops fail, accidents happen, and innocent situations are blown out of proportion due to the climate of fear and paranoia created by strict religious practice. 

 

While The Witch is (and works well as) a horror film, although one without many jump scares or much gore. Eggers could have been coy about whether or not the titular monster was real or just a hallucination brought on by the settlers' collective hysteria. However, in the early goings after Samuel vanishes, we are treated to a gruesome scene that all but confirms that yes, the creature is real and is a threat to our characters. This, and other supernatural elements, is utilized to lock viewers into the mindset and daily life of the displaced pilgrims. The horror conceit gives Eggers a free hand to use atonal music, screeching choirs, and jagged, sudden cuts and editing to goose the viewer into feeling jumpy and full of dread. These techniques, along with the actors total commitment to behaving, dressing, and speaking as if they were from the 1600's, create a climate of fear that seems like an accurate depiction of the time. Using the same methods without the paranormal components might have appeared off and caused the audience to question whether or not the various freak-outs reflected historical fact.

 

Among the cast, the standout of this "New England folk tale" is young newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy. Thomasin is on the cusp puberty, a fact which is made clear to us by the various men in her life leering at her, and Taylor-Joy plays her with just the perfect mix of diffidence towards her parents and the first hints of open defiance and questioning of her family's mores. Thomasin receives the brunt of the misogyny and sexism within the film (which help explains her ultimate choice). Her father keeps quiet when she gets blamed for a missing silver cup, her mother berates her for "showing off" her developing body, and she is the first to be accused when the spooky stuff starts going down. The other actors are equally good. Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie as the patriarch and matriarch respectively look appropriately haggard and give a tragic edge to the way William and Katherine have internalized the severely repressive gender and familial roles of the time. Harvey Scrimshaw has a wee bit of trouble with the Old English dialogue, but is believable otherwise. His panicked confusion over the harsh, arcane rules of Puritan Christianity is universally relatable, and he's especially mesmerizing during a exorcism/possession scene.

 

There are multiple, intra-family battles bubbling under the surface The Witch, and it works well as an intense drama à la The Shining. The witch is simply the extra ingredient that causes the whole pot to boil over. Jarin Blaschke's muted, careful cinematography adequately captures the isolation and desperation of the situation. The choice of a 1.66:1 frame helps create a claustrophobic feel, makes the surrounding forest appear to ominously loom over everything, and recalls the European arthouse cinema (Bergman, Dreyer) that Eggers has cited as an influence. The use of natural and candle/torch light limits the visibility to just what the people onscreen can see, adds an extra layer of intensity to the lighting, and gives the exterior shots a muted color that reflects the physical and psychological harshness afflicting everyone. It would be easy for The Witch to treat its Protestant subjects as cartoon crazies. Luckily this is not the case, and they are presented as complex, contradictory people trapped by the dominant, contemporaneous ideas around them. However, the movie is harshly critical of their religious chauvinism. As mentioned before, William acts as if his belief in God is going to turn the ground fertile, and puts his partner and offspring in danger just to satiate his sense of purity. The actual witch could stand in for any of the fears that moralistic pilgrims would be facing in North America, be it nature, sexuality, or sin.

 

Eggers' debut is a convincing recreation of the mood that would lead to the infamous witch trials. It's also a demonstration that successful world-building does not necessarily mean convoluted mythology and reams of backstory, but simply a dedication to craft and authenticity.

Review: The Maltese Falcon

Directed by John Huston

Written by John Huston adapting the novel by Dashiell Hammett

Starring Humphrey Bogart (Sam Spade), Mary Astor (Brigid O'Shaughnessy), Peter Lorre (Joel Cairo), Sydney Greenstreet (Kasper Gutman), and Elisha Cook Jr. (Wilmer Cook)

Cinematography by Arthur Edeson

Edited by Thomas Richards

In 1539, the Knight Templars of Malta, paid tribute to Charles V of Spain, by sending him a Golden Falcon encrusted from beak to claw with rarest jewels - - - - - but pirates seized the galley carrying this priceless token and the fate of the Maltese Falcon remains a mystery to this day - - -

So begins The Maltese Falcon. What sounds like the start to a corny kids serial ends up being one of the seminal films of the studio era. Indeed, it's almost unbelievable how influential and important Falcon proved to be. John Huston got his first shot at directing, having previously been a scriptwriter at Universal, and would go on to make such classics as Treasure of the Sierra Madre and The Man Who Would Be King. In addition, this early Noir would help push Humphrey Bogart's career from mainly supporting roles as criminals to leading man anti-hero. Falcon also lead to numerous, stand-out character actor parts for Peter Lorre, Elisha Cook Jr., and Sydney Greenstreet (making his film acting debut here). All three turn in memorable performances. Greenstreet is especially memorable as Gutman, displaying a detached kind of amusement to the proceedings. He delights in Spade's calculated brusqueness, amuses himself with smart-sounding phrases like "I'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk", and enjoys the sheer hunt for the avian sculpture as much as he wants it for the money.

The Maltese Falcon represents a transitional stage in the way detective/crime fiction was transferred to the silver screen. The work contains many of the hallmarks associated with Film Noir (dangerous women, ambiguous protagonists, and heightened photography) and Huston laid the groundwork here so future Noir films could become even  more gloomy and brutal. The influence of German Expressionism on the cinematography can be seen in certain scenes. Particularly when upshots are used to make certain characters appear more ominous, like when Spade meets with Gutman or when our terrible trio all glare down at Wilmer after they've condemned him to be the fall guy. Other examples of this style come when Spade is awoken by a phone call informing him of Archer's death and the repeated image of Sam's figure being stuck between other hostile players. The masterful lighting and framing helps set the tone and visually conveys the dark feelings of the characters and the film's morally ambiguous nature.

Sam Spade and Brigid O'Shaughnessy are one step away from being completely irredeemable. Bogie is a bastard, but still has a fragment of a code, which eventually leads him to make the right choice at the end despite wavering in every previous scene. Astor is manipulative and deceitful, but isn't dominating enough to be a fully-fledged femme fatale (like Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity) She ends up getting the comeuppance of a common criminal, and not winning or going out in a blaze of glory as later Noir ladies would.

To return to a topic I've discussed before, it's frustrating that older cinema (particularly stuff before the 60's) sometimes get written off as unrealistic or unnatural. First off, the "not realistic" charge is kind of silly to level at a movie in general considering the massive amounts of careful construction and manipulation that goes into even the most modest of films. Second, it's more important that a movie has a consistent style, and The Maltese Falcon definitely meets that requirement. The dialogue, acting, and camerawork are all heightened to around the same level. If the characters suddenly started in speaking mumblecore, that would be a problem. As is, everything is perfectly fine, it's just a matter of adjusting to a different filmic rhythm.

Not to mention that Falcon tackles complex subjects like betrayal, crime, greed, and lust head-on in a way that most modern movies are reluctant to do. Within the first fifteen minutes our protagonist's partner is gunned down, the ingénue is caught in a web of lies of her own making, and it's revealed that Spade is seeing his just-deceased partner's wife.  Additionally, there are plenty of subtleties hidden underneath the pulpy surface that make multiple viewings rewarding. Spade's hand shakes after he storms out of Gutman's abode. He then laughs at this fact, making him seem genuinely unstable. There's also a quick shot of him grabbing his secretary's wrist when the titular statue stumbles into his office. She responds by saying "you're hurting me", revealing that Spade is just as susceptible to the baser desires he chides the other characters for exhibiting.

Review: Hail, Caesar!

Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen

Written by Joel and Ethan Coen

Starring Josh Brolin (Eddie Mannix), George Clooney (Baird Whitlock), and Alden Ehrenreich (Hobie Doyle),

Cinematography by Roger Deakins

Edited by Joel and Ethan Coen

Music by Carter Burwell

*Note, I'm going to discuss later plot elements, shouldn't be anything too spoilery, but if you want to go into your viewing totally clean, don't read this.

Religion, A-bombs, communists, kidnappings, drunken actors, gossip columnists, foul-mouthed actresses, hilariously heavy southern accents, and making movies! Oh my! After what seemed like a long wait after Inside Llewyn Davis, it's only the Coen Brothers' latest, Hail, Caesar! Their newest release is an unstable, yet delectable, cocktail of religious symbolism, political and philosophical discourse, dissection of the 50's studio system, and a playful, but respectful, send-up of the contemporary cinema.

At the center of the sprawling web of stories, conflicts, characters, relationships, and film shoots is Eddie Mannix, played wonderfully by Josh Brolin. Mannix is a "fixer" for Capitol Pictures, a job that mainly involves ensuring that the damaged private lives of the studio's stars don't get leaked to the public so their squeaky clean image can remain untarnished. Eddie's position is a perfect vehicle through which the audience can experience the insanity of the multi-layered story. The Coen Brothers rarely stick to standard narrative structures, and Hail, Caesar! is no exception. The plot hangs very loosely and often feels like a series of semi-related sketches (note this is not a critique). The fixer job is a neat writing trick that allows Eddie to insert himself into different, seemingly-unrelated scenarios, while still maintaining the core thread and themes. He's the straight man, that the other less put-together characters can bounce off of, and Brolin hits every note almost flawlessly. He nails just the right mixture of fifties sheen, comical frustration with the inanity around him, and genuine soul-searching about the direction his life is headed.

The main core of the aforementioned shaggy story involves Capitol Pictures' head star Baird Whitlock, another fine "idiot" performance from George Clooney. During the making of the eponymous film, he's taken hostage. Everything spins out from there as Mannix tries to ensure Whitlock's safe return and ends up  coming into contact with starlet Deeana Moran (Scarlet Johansson), tap-dancing sensation Burt Gurney (Channing Tatum), aw-shucks cowboy Hobie Doyle (Alden Ehrenreich in a breakout performance), and politely uptight British film director Lawrence Laurentz (Ralph Fiennes).

Eventually it is revealed that Baird has been kidnapped by communists! (bum bum buuummmm!), specifically a cell of the CPUSA composed of Hollywood script writers. Taking a detour for a moment, and speaking as someone who has haunted Marxist circles, the Coens' portrayal of that type of intellectual is actually fairly accurate. They even successfully replicate the specific lingo those groups drape themselves in. I'm guessing the two brothers were either lectured by a radical professor or had an excitable roommate/friend who was really into Das Kapital. Although, one major bit they get wrong is that one of the reds correlates to Herbert Marcuse, a thinker active in the 60's who was one of the major inspirations for the New Left. Marcuse's main focus was on the crippling effects modern consumer capitalism had on the ability of the working class and society in general to rebel and think critically. He was equally condemnatory of the repressive atmosphere of the "socialist" states of Eastern Europe. Furthermore, he was never a member of the American Communist Party, which by the 50's had nothing liberatory or emancipatory about it and had been a bureaucratic arm of the Soviet Union's foreign policy for decades.

But I digress, back at the pinkos' beachfront hideaway in Malibu, there is much talk about capitalism, dialectics, contradiction, economics, the body-politic, and The New Man. George Clooney's reaction to all of this is humorously blasé. When he first wakes up after being kidnapped, he immediately assumes that he just blacked out from a bender gone wrong, and 100% accepts what he's being told by his new friends after about oh... five minutes (he quickly returns to his standard blankness after Mannix slaps him and delivers the best line of the film: "If the picture has worth and you serve the picture, then you have worth"). The socialists' plan is ultimately revealed to be entirely spineless and ineffectual. This brings in one of the central themes of the film, and the Coens' oeuvre in general. That any plans you make and any larger changes you hope to enact, will always fail, both due to your own mistakes and quirks of the universe. Applying this to world of filmmaking is aces, and has been successfully mined by the Brothers before, albeit tangentially, in Barton Fink. The brief peaks we get at the different studio sessions all serve as examples of Murphy's Law. The star can't remember his lines, the starlet is pregnant, the dancer is gay, the cowboy can't pronounce his lines, the editor gets her scarf stuck in the projector, and the celluloid ends up burned. The image does not match reality. While this makes for some satisfying riffing and ribbing, it leads to an uncomfortable conclusion. That the good guys are those who don't ask too many questions, go along with the flow, and trust their guts (i.e. Hobie and eventually Mannix). To me, this is a conservative message, but I'll stipulate that I'm not certain that this is indeed what is being said. In addition, I would like to watch the film again and hear counter-arguments to my own, before definitively making up my min.

A few last thoughts before I wrap-up. Hail, Caesar! is rife with internal repression. Every player is hiding some type of secret or subordinating an inner desire in order to better serve the studio. An actual engagement with the real-life Marcuse's ideas would have been highly appropriate here. Particularly how mass culture can paralyze our capacity to discover our own thoughts, wants, and needs. I'm worried that, so far, I haven't given a good impression of how funny the whole picture is. The Coens will stop everything in order to deliver some clever wordplay or absurd joke. Like when they take a five minute break so Hobie can fumble his way through pronouncing "Were that (t)were so simple". Finally, Deakins does a stand out job (as he always does) of replicating the softness and color of the cinematography of the period, without over-doing it.

Review: Premium Rush

Directed by David Koep

Written by David Koep and John Kamps

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Wilee), Dania Ramirez (Vanessa), Jamie Chung (Nima), and Michael Shannon (Bobby Monday)

Cinematography by Mitchell Amundsen

Edited by Derek Ambrosi and Jill Savitt

On the surface, Premium Rush sounds like it should be fun time. Hardcore bike couriers, corrupt cops, a twisty crime saga. Unfortunately, there are multiple ways to craft the same story, and David Koep chooses the least engaging way to tell this one. It's a relatively serious action movie, with a little bit of (half-hearted) humor thrown in. What makes this outcome doubly frustrating is that there is a good film buried somewhere in Premium Rush. Part of the problem is that it tries to be multiple movies at once. The fun parts are the ones that tease at a Hot Fuzz-esque parody of extreme sports flicks. The moments that best represent this trend are the scenes of Wilee's "accident vision" where time slows down, he pictures the multiple paths he can take while riding his bicycle through New York City, and predicts that possible pileups that await him.

But the heightened, cartoonish tone is not maintained outside of those sequences. As a result, Gordon-Levitt's character absolutely tanks. If a more a satirical, over-the-top attitude had been consistently applied throughout the entirety of the film, Wilee's demeanor would have been a bit easier to take. As is, he comes off as an absolute douchebag. He rides a fixed-gear bike with no brakes, knowing that it will put pedestrians and motorists in more danger, just to get an adrenaline fix. It's extremely rare in my movie watching that I care more for random passersby's than the main character, but that's how I felt during Rush. I winced every time someone almost got hit or run into due to Wilee's stupid, entirely unnecessary antics, a reaction I can't say I experienced towards Wilee himself. That bike couriers' are presented as having an authentic, serious hardass culture that somehow places them above everyone else, only makes matters worse.

This points to another issue, because a singular tone is not kept up, the style and story ends up waffling and becomes unsatisfying. Neither the comedic nor dramatics beats hit correctly as a result, and the main plot is damaged badly by the inconsistency. A friend of Wilee's and Vanessa's (Nima) contracts their bike service to deliver a package to Chinatown. Eventually it is revealed that the parcel contains an immigration pass that Nima has worked extremely hard for in order to bring her child to America from an undefined Asian country. The plot line feels more befitting of a middlebrow/Oscar-bait picture. Alongside the comedic and action elements, it appears entirely shoe-horned in. Like the creators realized they didn't have much going on up on the screen, and tried to awkwardly fit in a sincere story in order to cynically manipulate a little pathos out of the audience. Same goes for Shannon's dick cop character, Bobby Monday. He should be a delicious, hammy villain, but Shannon doesn't quite go far enough for his portrayal to be memorable. Finally, like Nima's arc, Monday's fate is a little too gruesome for the rest of the picture, and causes everything to end on an unpleasant note.

Certain moments of Premium Rush make for an enjoyable, entertaining viewing experience. However, they are dragged down by a mistaken approach and the poor-fit of the dominant narrative.

Returning from a long absence

Well I've been away from the blog for about a year. I was reviewing films I saw through streaming and rental service, and in theater, pretty regularly (hopefully steadily improving at it as well). The last two things I wrote were a review of The Homesman and a jokey description of Princess Bubblegum from Adventure Time. 

The majority of this blog was written between finishing college and finding my first job, so I had a great deal of free time that made it easy and enjoyable for me to watch, read, and write about a wide variety of films. After I attained gainful employment, it was far harder to find the space to keep up with cinema at the level I was accustomed to. It became a huge drain on my energy having to view so many films, and write about them as well, while going to work every day.

That's one of the main reason my blogging dropped off so precipitously. The other reason is that my interest in film waned. I started to get the sense that I had already seen everything there was to see, and it became rarer and rarer that I got that jolt of recognizing an amazing picture. Looking back, this was a foolish feeling, since just a few months after I stopped I saw Mad Max: Fury Road, which hit me in that way only a good movie can.

As my curiosity about celluloid flagged, I became more engaged with following politics, news, and history. Mainly I was concerned with learning about/keeping up with mass, working class-based social and labor movements. I also became involved in activism around workers' and tenants' rights. This activity was fun for a while, but was extremely stressful and strenuous to engage in. The same burnout I experienced with film culture has hit me with politics, so I'm going to take a break from that area and try my hand at media criticism once again. I would like to think that I'll be able to add a substantive political analysis from a progressive/leftist perspective to my writing now too.

From here on out, I'm mainly going to be focused on doing basic reviews of movies I happen to see. These will be both older and newer, since my main avenue for watching these things is through streaming services, and I plan an drastically increasing the number of theater screenings I attend. Eventually, I hope to do a series on Mark Cousins' The Story of Film: An Oddyssey, where I'll analyze all of the films that appear in the series while also doing an overview of each episode. I've gone through the entirety of the show before, but I would like to check it out again with the additional knowledge of having seen and analyzed all of the flicks that are brought up. I went through the most recent British Film Institute's Top Fifty Greatest Films about two years ago, and luckily, there are many films that appear on both lists, so I'll be able to cannibalize some of my work that was never posted here.

Anyway, cheers, looking forward to getting back into things again.

Under the Chewy Pink Boot

If the official Candy Kingdom propaganda program Adventure Time is to believed, the figure known as Princess Bubblegum is a benevolent ruler, gently guiding her candy “children” through strong leadership and scientific can-do. She’s fun-loving when it’s useful, stern when necessary, and ha a sparkly sense of style, Bubblegum looks the very ideal of a good leader. But how much is really known about her?

Her title of “Princess” raises multiple questions. From where does she claim her royalty? Does she age? How did she gain dominion over the Candy Kingdom and how does she maintain her control? And what right allows the continuance of her reign? These basic inquiries have no answers. Is Bubblegum afraid of what the release of this information will provoke in her citizens? Has she conspired to cover all this up?
Part of her control is maintained through technical know-how. Some will say that expertise bestows a measure of legitimacy. She’s the smartest and the brightest. Surely she can develop the Kingdom to its highest potential right? Setting aside the problems inherent to a technocracy, a closer look at her supposedly innovational track record brings to light a few cracks.

Not widely known is the development of the Kingdom’s current police state. One of the Princess’s actions in the halcyon days of candy-dom was to create a group of elite guards colloquially termed Rattleballs. Their moral programming was so binary and their tactics were so brutal, that the candy prisons quickly swelled to reprehensible levels.  In an ironic twist, the squads were soon useless, and, coded for nothing else, were liquidated for recycling purposes. The lesson of the Rattleballs is clear: even the most loyal are unsafe from the brunt of Bubblegum’s sticky fist.

The extinct corps’ organic cousins are the current Banana Guards. While nicer than their forebears, this is more due to general incompetence and cowardice than any decree from our Lady’s confectionary tower. Also related are the towering Gumball Guardians. These sentinels seem successful, but, while they may work in last-ditch push-backs, their design is terribly misguided. For Glob’s sakes, the sentries’ brains are encased in glass. A slingshot-pebble to the head is capable of incapacitating them.

Another, sadder story is obscured by these foibles. Generalissimo Gum is willing to mobilize a shameful amount of resources to build a military/prison-industrial complex instead of creating a candy safety-net for candies who, through no fault of their own, fall through the candy cracks.

Our dear leader’s foreign policy is ineffective, inhumane, and highly illegal. Hypocritical rhetoric is employed to justify the mucking about in other Kingdoms. Typically this is done with the help of the unbound-by-law vigilantes known as Finn and Jake (yes the same two “heroes” featured in Adventure Time). Claims of “spreading civilization,” “keeping our kingdom safe,” and “ending oppression” are frequent whenever she acts in the Fire Kingdom. That last statement is a joke, considering the massive surveillance apparatus that dutifully watches over all candy residents and her suppression of Princess Cookie’s revolt.

The Flame Princess was imprisoned for years with Candy Kingdom technology based on shoddy dossiers claiming she was “unstable”. This allowed the Flame King to continue his despotic reign unchallenged. It also directly contributed to the defection of Cinnamon Bun from his homeland in order to support the fiery heir’s coup.

Finally, there are whispers from Bubblegum’s inner circle that far darker doings are afoot. While the extent of their relationship has been kept cloudy, Bonnibel is chummy with Marceline the Vampire Queen (daughter of Night-O’-Sphere overlord Hunson Abadeer). Intense speculation has been brewing around right-hand man Peppermint Butler’s activities. Rumors indicate that he is a practitioner of the black arts and close friends with Death. What does the nature of Bubblegum’s company say about her? In times of extreme duress, Frau Preebs has been known to start exclaiming in a dead language called German. Long before the Mushroom Wars, legend tells of a tyrant who did the same.

The myths that Dictator P.B. has carefully cultivated around herself are a lie. I hope this report will be the first shot in ending them.

It's Still 2014 Right?...Right?: The Homesman

Directed by Tommy Lee Jones
Written by Tommy Lee Jones, Kieran Fitzgerald, and Wesley A. Oliver adapting Glendon Swarthout’s Novel
Starring Tommy Lee Jones (George Briggs) and Hilary Swank (Mary Bee Cuddy)
Cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto
Edited by Roberto Silvi
Released in 2014

Tommy Lee Jones’ second work has put me in a weird place. I can list off the qualities that make The Homesman a unique exercise in the western genre, but I can’t say that the film was satisfying and neither can I say why that is so. I walked out with more of a “well that was interesting” shrug than any strong thoughts or feelings positive or negative. Oh well, I’ll try to clarify what The Homesman does well and see if that leads to any concrete conclusions. 

Westerns have always been set in desolate locales. Even ones that take place in towns are separated from civilization or feature the creeping edge of civilization as a major theme. Often this isolation is kept to a general pall hanging over the film. Sometimes the hard-bitten landscapes will directly affect the characters that walk through them, like in The Searchers where the harshness of the surroundings shreds Ethan Edwards' psyche. Rarely have I seen vistas as barren, as lonely, as flat, and as boring as those in The Homesman. Swank’s Cuddy and Jones’ Briggs are required to deliver three insane women from Nebraska territory to Eastern Iowa. Once they set out, there are no changes in elevation and seeing a tree is like striking gold. Scene after scene consists solely of Cuddy and Briggs’ wagon slowly, agonizingly clunking along. It's constant creaking, a warning that it may fall apart at any second. Watching it all places the viewer in a blank state, like the hypnosis induced by driving through the Midwest times ten. 

As indicated by the setup, the position of women in the hierarchy of the western territories is a main concern. Why the three women are/become unstable remains unclear. Most likely, it's a combination of spousal abuse and neglect and mental illness. This goes back to my earlier comments about the scenery. The film shows that frontier life was so stacked with hardship and so removed from normal human contact that going insane was a sane response. Even Cuddy, who has managed to eke out a small measure of stability, quickly starts to fracture due to loneliness and stress. Briggs has developed the perfect persona to survive on the prairie. Loopy when it is advantageous for him to appear weak, spitfire mean and coldhearted when he has to face down an adversary, and sympathetically weary when he needs to quickly get through a standard human interaction. All things considered, his irrationality seems entirely rational

The focus on women's hardships and the mind-breaking struggle of homesteader life, both ably communicated through the cinematography, should provide plenty to ponder. The main reason I'm less than positive on The Homesman is due to certain turns that take place in the latter half. I’ll refrain from getting too specific. I think the purpose is to wrinkle the direction the story had been going up to that point. Unfortunatly, the later developments are more confusing and muddling than complicating.