Review of The Homesman (2014) by Binky L — 14 Dec 2014

In "The Homesman," Mary Bee Cuddy(Hilary Swank) is a self-sufficient farmer in Nebraska territory. However, she aims to change that by proposing marriage to Bob Giffen(Evan Jones), a fellow homesteader, and is turned down flat. Soon enough, Mary and the rest of the town have bigger problems to contend themselves with. Namely, the mental well-being of three local women(Grace Gummer, Miranda Otto and Sonja Richter). It is soon decided to take them back east to Iowa for the care they need and Mary is the one who volunteers to take them. Luckily, for her she finds George Briggs(Tommy Lee Jones, who also directed and co-wrote), a not-so-good man about to be lynched, who agrees to help.

For about the last fifteen years, Hollywood has had little idea what to do with Hilary Swank, who like many others who do not fit easily into a simple box. However, with "The Homesman," she gives her own fierce answer in another excellent performance in a western that is relevant to today.(Plus, in an extended cameo, Meryl Streep gives her best performance in quite a while. Faint praise, I know, but still.) What this movie also does so well is detail not so much the physical struggles of surviving on the frontier, but the mental ones as well. So, it is a shame that women are hardly treated any better in the present day.