Just when you thought the Western was dead, along comes another revival of the genre and who better than Tommy Lee Jones to direct and star in one? "The Homesman" fits into the neo-Western canon comfortably and is a visceral, engaging offering.
Hillary Swank plays Mary Bee Cuddy, a single, lonely woman living on a farm in Nebraska. One day she finds herself with the daunting responsibility of transporting three insane women across the frontier to a home in Iowa where they will be taken care of. Just before she leaves, she meets George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones) who she rescues from a hanging. In return for rescuing him, she asks that he accompany her on her voyage. He reluctantly agrees.
The film brings new realism to the genre not just in the period detail but in the psychological realism. The viewer gets a real sense of just how these three women can be driven insane by their environments. The film takes the precarious balance between sanity and insanity as its overriding theme and it is not just the three women who deal with madness, but as we will see, Swank and Jones' characters as well.
A lot of the iconography from the history of the Western is present: Indians, horses, gunplay, good vs. evil, and civilization vs. wilderness. "The Homesman" and its director Jones take this iconography and spin it in new and interesting directions that revitalize the genre and breathes new life into its patterns and cinematic codes.
The performances are excellent, the cinematography is beautiful in its desolation, and the film is an overall rewarding experience.
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