Search results
Nov 13, 2014 · Tommy Lee Jones. Add Topic. 'Homesman' is a bunch of malarkey. Claudia Puig. USA TODAY. 0:05. 1:38. Set on the Great Plains in the mid-1800s, The Homesman aims for a story that's poignant and...
- Paint your psychological horror, goofball comedy, Western wagon.
- Verdict
By Matt Patches
Updated: Aug 16, 2021 11:59 pm
Posted: Nov 15, 2014 1:23 am
The Homesman is a horror comedy. There aren't ghouls, gremlins or gross-out gags in the latest drama from actor-turned-director Tommy Lee Jones, but its laissez-faire approach to pummeling the audience with psychological stress and wacky quirk doesn't mirror too many other Westerns either. It's like a tempered Evil Dead 2 with mentally ill housewives instead of body-inhabiting demons.
Introductions paint The Homesman as a more traditional 19th century mission movie. Despite perseverance and work ethic, Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank) is all alone, desperate for a husband to join her in the Nebraska Territory. A bit off-kilter to begin with, rejection drives the adept Renaissance woman up a wall. When an opportunity to high tail it out of town presents itself, escorting three unstable wives to an institution in Iowa, Mary leaps at the chance. The men of town see her as unfit for the job. Mary doesn't take “no” for an answer.
Just before embarking on the arduous journey, Mary frees George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones), a claim jumper in the process of being lynched. The price for freedom: Assisting her in the escort effort -- a hand she'll need when it becomes apparent her three passengers are dangerous schizophrenics with bark and bite. Offering Briggs enough money to keep his attention, the quintet hitch up a wagon and set out into the Midwest's open plains, a terrifyingly vast emptiness.
The Homesman feels like stumbling upon an old photograph. There's no attempt at explanation. Everything we know comes straight off the frame, dusty and sepia-toned. With a steady hand and Marco Beltrami's haunting score, Jones tracks the highs and lows of Mary's journey without conforming to the blocky story and obvious resolves of Hollywood pictur...
- Matt Patches
Dec 5, 2014 · There are those that paint it as a place of grand adventure and 10-gallon nobility, a place populated by flawed heroes with ill manners but a time-forged strength and, beneath the grit and the...
Nov 17, 2014 · The new Tommy Lee Jones and Hilary Swank movie is a western in name only. But is The Homesman worth the ride? Here's our review...
May 18, 2014 · Peter Bradshaw. Sun 18 May 2014 06.41 EDT. T ommy Lee Jones shows some true storytelling grit in this superbly watchable frontier western; he has a muscular and confident command of narrative,...
May 18, 2014 · May 18, 2014 5:48am PT. Cannes Film Review: ‘The Homesman’. As in 'The Missing,' Tommy Lee Jones plays support to a strong female character in this sturdy cross-country Western. By Peter...
Nov 14, 2014 · ‘The Homesman’ Review: Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones Impress in a Unique Western. Inkoo Kang. Meryl Streep, John Lithgow, and James Spader co-star in a brutal but riveting tale that...
