The Homesman

When we think of the “revisionist Western” genre, the implication is usually one of Peckinpah-esque ultraviolence or Dead Man artiness. Tommy Lee Jones' unexpectedly devastating The Homesman, while hardly lacking for flashes of brutal violence or moments of equally brutal introspection, takes a slightly different approach. It is a film about the western landscape as a psychological nightmare, and in its deepest and darkest moments, The Homesman questions how insanity should be defined in a world as savage and lonely as the one it depicts. However, this is also a full entertainment, filled with rich and moving performances, bawdy humor, powerful visuals and a genuine empathy for the forgotten heroes of history. Jones, who adapted the Glendon Swarthout novel along with screenwriters Kieran Fitzgerald and Wesley A. Oliver and also gives a great performance here, only leads the viewer down comforting alleys in order to ambush them with ugly truths.