Three women who have been driven mad by pioneer life are to be transported across the country by covered wagon by the pious, independent-minded Mary Bee Cuddy, who in turn employs low-life drifter George Briggs to assist her.
The Homesman is a new genre: phoney proto-feminist western.
f Jones never makes another western this will stand as an offbeat, original, hauntingly memorable piece.
Another solid directorial effort from the occasional filmmaker.
It’s more fascinating work by Jones – let’s hope it’s not another nine years until his next.
The fact that they can be grief-stricken one moment and dancing a wild jig the next is what makes this film – probably the best Western since Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven – so inscrutable, so distinctive and, finally, so moving.
It is a muscular, heartfelt picture, tempered with shrewd sympathy and insight.
On form as both director and actor, Jones crafts a mournful but moving hymn to the western. The feminist subtext, meanwhile, brings a fresh slant to the old genre.
Moments of humor sit oddly amid the grimness and the story ultimately doesn’t amount to much (a twist designed to shock fails to ring true) but it’s strongly acted and atmospheric.
The tonal shifts serve to make the drama more interesting and suspenseful.
Verdict: Strange but stirring western.
The result is infuriatingly conflicted fare, buoyed up by brilliant performances, weighed down by old-school cliche, leavened by the bleak plains over which it casts its lonely, misanthropic eye.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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