Film reviews: True Grit and Never Let Me Go

True Grit (15)]

On general release

Tony Earnshaw *****

In time this terrific adaptation of Charles Portis’s 1968 novel will go down in history as a 21st-century Western classic.

Adopting a drawl like master director John Ford, Jeff Bridges saddles up as tough-talkin’, fast-shootin’, hard-drinkin’ US Marshall Rooster Cogburn who, despite his misgivings, lets himself be hired by a young girl to track down her father’s killer.

From the outset Bridges is scrupulously careful not to borrow from or copy any of the style or inflections of John Wayne, who won an Oscar for the same role. Bridges also lacks Wayne’s unique swagger. But this is a very different type of film by very different filmmakers. As much a revisionist take on the Western as it is a nod to its antecedents, True Grit has the look and feel of those great old horse operas by people like Budd Boetticher, Anthony Mann and Sam Peckinpah.

Audiences who recall the Wayne version must accept that the original was created as a vehicle for a star who no longer acted; he only played John Wayne. Bridges, by comparison, emerges as not so much an iconic figure but a flawed man of clay with an eye (he only has one) on whiskey and cash. But mostly whiskey.

In the hands of the Coens the story offers opportunities for some first-class character work by an exemplary cast. Bridges is flanked by Josh Brolin as quarry Tom Chaney, Matt Damon as Rooster’s companion LaBeouf and an unrecognisable Barry Pepper as outlaw leader “Lucky” Ned Pepper. One wonders whether they might be related.

Then there is Hailee Steinfeld as Mattie Ross, the scarily-focused young lass who vows to bring her father’s murderer to justice. She is as dramatic a discovery as Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense. What’s more, whenever she’s on screen all eyes are exclusively on her. Only 14, she is already possessed of rare power and a magnetic screen presence.

Peerless camerawork from long-time Coen collaborator Roger Deakins and mouth-watering locations transform Portis’s gently satirical piece into a rare odyssey to rank alongside Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. Like that film it is slow, measured and patient. And quite superb.

Never Let Me Go (12A)

On general release

Tony Earnshaw *****

There is a chilling, revelatory moment in this completely satisfying adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel when teacher Sally Hawkins reveals to her pupils that they are being groomed for organ donation.

Until that point there was a delusional, fantasy feel about the world in which Kathy, Ruth and Tommy are growing up – an insular society isolated from the outside existence of the swinging ‘60s in which they are cosseted and lied to by their teachers.

As they mature and begin questioning their place in the universe, the three friends understand only too well what the future holds. Kathy and Tommy (Carey Mulligan and Andrew Garfield) seek a solution via love. Ruth (Keira Knightley) aggressively seizes life via sexual liberation.

A pall of shared unwillingness to accept the harsh truth hangs over the protagonists in Mark Romanek’s unapologetically brutal film. Understanding of what the National Donor Programme (NDP) represents, Knightley suggests that they are modelled on trash. “Look in the gutter,” she says. “That’s where we come from.”

Even an attempt to connect with Ruth’s “original” has an air of Hammer horror. On witnessing her double at work in everyday life, Ruth cannot bring herself to confront her. Truth hits home like a thunderbolt.

A key sequence in which lovebirds Kathy and Tommy visit their former headteacher – Charlotte Rampling in severe, soulless mode – sums up the milieu.

“You poor creatures. I wish I could help you,” she murmurs, her carefully chosen words underlining the Frankensteinian horror of the plot. Never Let Me Go appears to be a hybrid of any number of past movies with a darkly sci-fi angle, from Logan’s Run and The Island to Coma and The Handmaid’s Tale.

Yet whilst most of those distant cousins opt for something akin to a hopeful or happy denouement, Romanek and screenwriter Alex Garland follow Ishiguro’s premise. It takes immense bravery to stick to one’s artistic guns and the finished film is all the better for it.

The final contemplative sequence on a grey day in an alternative England is what great courageous filmmaking is all about. It is rarely seen these days. And as a platform for the UK’s current crop of outstanding acting talent Never Let Me Go is unrivalled.