THE HOMESMAN

 During my Oscar-winning Best Picture journey in 2020, I gained an appreciation for good westerns. This was a genre I had previously steered clear of because I felt they tended to be extremely formulaic in their storytelling. Films like Dances with Wolves and Unforgiven opened my eyes to how wonderful a well-developed Western could actually be. Now I’m going to add The Homesman to that list of highly entertaining westerns.

The Homesman was released in 2014 and it stars Hillary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones as an extremely mismatched pair of frontier people on a journey to transport three insane women from the Nebraska Territory to a Christian mission in Iowa (The film was also directed by Jones).

Swank portrays Mary Bee Cuddy, a woman who, uncharacteristically of the period, stands toe-to-toe with the men of her frontier territory. This type of defiant and strong woman is a character that Swank has become known for. With Cuddy, however, Swank also paints an individual who while prideful and assured, is also extremely vulnerable and to some degree, desperate. Cuddy doesn’t choose to live alone; she is forced to because she is considered undesirable by the available men in her life. Swank’s portrayal of Cuddy is superbly multi-dimensional.

Following a grim winter, three frontier women succumb to madness, each for differing reasons. It becomes Cuddy’s duty to transport these three women across the plains to a facility in Iowa where they can be better cared for. As Cuddy sets off on her journey, she encounters George Briggs (Jones), a rapscallion character who has gotten into a situation where he requires Cuddy’s assistance to free himself. In exchange for her assistance, Cuddy demands that Briggs assist her on her dangerous journey ahead. Briggs is both a hero and a villain in this story, and Jones gets that and has a great time with the character. While Cuddy is able to pull some empathy from Briggs, he’s still a scoundrel at heart.

This movie provides the viewer with some harrowing examples of women’s experiences during this period, with some hearty laughter (thanks to Jones), a clunker scene (Cuddy lost alone on a horse), with some oddity (a hotel scene in the middle of nowhere), and most of all, with examples of human resilience and respect. It twists and turns and will not take you where you think you know it is going. It is not predictable, and because of that it is splendid.

This film was part of my 2022 Meryl Streep journey. Meryl plays the wife of the pastor who runs the church in Iowa which is the destination Cuddy and Briggs set off to reach. Her role is a small and understated one. The Homesman rests almost completely in the hands of Swank and Jones.