There's no getting past the fact that The Homesman, which was written and directed by none other than Tommy Lee Jones as something of a passion project, is one of the strangest westerns to have ever found its way into theatres. Based on the novel of the same name, The Homesman tells the twisty, dream-like tale of a rugged claim jumper - played by Jones - and a spinster - played by Hilary Swank - who set out to transport three insane women to a sanctuary in Iowa. Unconventional in its structure (and filled with curveballs), the word "weird" is a real understatement. So The Homesman found itself met with lukewarm reviews, with many critics targeting a particularly shocking scene - one which occurs with forty minutes of the movie to go - as an ill-judged mistake. But to write off this revisionist western as anything other than a sort of bizarre modern classic is to deliver an injustice: Jones' movie might cling to an inconsistent tone that borders on the jarring, but that's sort of the point. The Homesman, after all, is a celebration of cinema that is - thank God - different. Did we need another straight western, after all? Sometimes weird is better.
Sam Hill is an ardent cinephile and has been writing about film professionally since 2008. He harbours a particular fondness for western and sci-fi movies.
