True Grit (2010)

Written with some delay after watching

For a Coen brothers film, I think this is actually a surprisingly straightforward Western. It's clearly excellent, and so mostly I'll just compare it to the original and the book.

It's clearly better than the 1960s version in almost every way, except that I prefer John Wayne to Jeff Bridges. When first watching it various scenes did seem to be taken directly from the original (the courtroom stairs, the hut where they cover the chimney), but having subsequently read the book they're clearly taken from there, so it's probably fair.

It captures the tone of the book very well, albeit with a couple of slight changes:

• There's a scene with a man in a bearskin, which is slightly out of place, and obviously an addition (but I don't mind it).
• The some of the middle is jumbled around a bit and reordered slightly (I don't think they ever give up on finding Ned Pepper). This doesn't make a huge difference I think: it's mostly in the tone and how it gets resolved.
• The ending is softened slightly from the book - although still much closer than in the 60s version - so that Rooster Cogburn writes to Maddie, rather than her hearing about his Wild West show from her brothe