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Just what I expected

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Very interesting film. Was caught on the premise when seeing the trailer but unsure as to what the outcome would be for the showing. As it turns out, it was a very good film.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

The Homesman starts out with a clear sense of direction, and it maintains that direction for the first hour. Then a strange and unwarranted turn of events throw the movie off track and the last several scenes rob it any integrity or meaning. It gets to where it was supposed to go, minus any climax or resolution. What we are left with is little more than a two hour cue card lesson about some of the Unkindness of the Frontier.The premise involves Swank volunteering to transport three crazed widows across miles of unsettled land to a hospital. She employs Jones as a body guard in exchange for saving him from the noose Though somewhat heavy in mannerism, Hilary Swank gives a strong performance, as does Tommy Lee Jones. Swank is battling some inner emotional turmoil that earns our sympathy, so when the script writes her out in a contrived manner, we are left feeling dumbfounded. Jones is left to finish the job, but the movie fails to showcase his personal investment, or give us a reason why he would bother. There is a creepy and grizzly scene where he resorts to arson in order to steal food for his harem. When he reaches the end of his journey he is welcomed by a curiously cast Merryl Streep playing a relatively flat, five minute role that is far from top billing. There is nothing formally wrong with her performance, its just that her reputation is overwhelms the scene. It would be similar like watching Justin Bieber play at a retirement home. She and Jones have a nice exchange and then the movie ends on a bizarre and emotionally void note that reminds us that all the proceedings have amounted to virtually nothing. It started as one picture and ends as another.

'The Homesman' is a decent enough, well-written Western drama that is everything you expect it to be, but it had the potential to be a lot better. The film has an expensive appearance and the cinematography is excellent, with some great attention to detail.The film also features a strong cast including Meryl Streep and the talented Hailee Steinfeld, who seems to fill these roles in Westerns perfectly. The problems with 'The Homesman' start with the pacing, which feels way too slow, even for a Western. The ending is also unnecessarily drawn out, adding very little to the film.The plot, whilst interesting enough to hold your attention, never really takes off and feels somewhat shallow. All in all, 'The Homesman' met my expectations, but I'm still left somewhat disappointed that it didn't do anything more. I think it had the potential to be much better.

tl;dr: Almost literally ANY Western (or, heck, historical) drama is better than this piece of pretentious, poorly written garbage."Oh, it's so dramatic to see the plight of these Nebraska women!" No it's not. The plots of each character are as contrived as any I've seen in a film. The only difference is that the story is written with utterly abysmal dialogue. None of the characters are likable, if only because the dialogue makes it too difficult to care about any of them (and yes, 1800s-speak is fine. Go watch Gods and Generals or either version of True Grit if you want to listen to 1800s-speak. The problem is that the writer confused "old-timey" with "bad"). The main character, Mary Bee Cuddy (Yes, she is as bland as the name sounds) is supposed to be cut out as a strong, independent woman. Again, no, she is not. Her whole shtick is that she lost her husband and has to do things by herself. She just comes off as bitter and, as the movie put it, "bossy," but neither determined like in True Grit nor somber like one would expect her to be, so it's impossible to connect with her. She tries to sing in the first ten minutes of the movie, with the help of a fake piano. God bless you if you managed to make it past THAT awkward moment. In fact, all the songs are terrible. Yes, there are multiple. At least half a dozen. So, for all practical purposes, the plot (or what little there is of one) is this: women all over Nebraska live terrible lives, and some go insane. It is Cuddy's job to take them to Iowa because WHY THE HECK NOT! So Cuddy throws them all into a paddy wagon and, with the help of a washed-up drunk played by a disinterested Tommy Lee Jones, sets out for Iowa. It actually gets really hilarious seeing her continuously throw loons into the paddy wagon like some bottomless pit (one of whom is Eowyn, by the way. Not that she's important to the story or anything, just that it's more palatable to just imagine Eowyn in the loony bin). Now, to give my fellow reviewers the benefit of the doubt, all the characters sound and act more and more insane as the journey progresses, implying that insanity is infectious. That's not insanity, though. Every character in the movie speaks like that. It's just bad writing. There IS one fight scene in this movie. I won't tell you where. You'll just have to parse through this movie to find it. Mwa. Ha. Ha. Also, the ending is a slap in the face. I cannot go further without going into spoiler territory. The best consolation I can give is this: if you go into the movie expecting physical pain, you will be spared. The movie is too lazy and too bland for THAT kind of torture.

"The Homesman" is a drama that surprised me. It's a western too and quite loyal to some of its roots, but it's not a drama that just happens to be a western. Because it is a western, it finds ways to emphasize the story in a way that makes it so much stronger than it would be otherwise.How should I describe this one? It's a story about hardship and broken people. Almost every character that has any focus, is somehow broken. Some are visibly broken beyond the capacity to function, and this is indeed the main storyline: Mary Bee Cuddy is determined to help three broken, mentally ill women to get to a church far away, where they would receive better care. Some of these women are reluctant to go, some of them want to go, but none of them speak and all of them seem beyond help. Mary Bee Cuddy gets a lowlife who calls himself George Briggs to help her transport these women. The journey is long, dangerous and ultimately tells us more about these characters than any destination ever would.Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank) drives this movie forward. She is a good, hard-working, God-fearing and strong-willed woman. Not a ball-busting superficial Mary Sue, or a portrayal of what an "independent woman" means to many modern mainstream feminists, but a real character with depth, needs and weaknesses of her own. This seems to have upset people who only want female characters to validate their checklist politics and/or bitterness, but everyone else can see a layered, driven and a very central character. About Mary Bee Cuddy's character, I do like how simple the symbolism is around her. She has managed to survive by herself in a very hostile and unforgiving world. She prays, she tries her best and she wants to help people. But can she help herself? The irony of the story is this: Mary Bee Cuddy wants to care for these broken people and get them all to a safe place far away, while she needs that destination and care just as much. She's not visibly broken and she can certainly function, but in her own way she is a desperate person. Desperate for love, desperate for anything to validate her struggles, to make them mean something. Most of us can relate to this. In this movie, you will find how people break in different ways. Some people are ill and their minds are broken, some can't get over a personal tragedy, some people are broken by cruelty and constant hardships, some people are broken by their inability to accept the "holes" in their hearts or what they don't have. Some people are broken by their false sense of independence and strength that doesn't allow them to love or care for others. This movie is both nihilistic and hopeful, even though the darkness threatens to swallow the little glimmer of hope left. There is a contrast. We are shown plenty of cruel things and hopeless despair, but I felt it also had a wonderfully naive heart to it, somewhere under the dark layers. This movie demonstrates how we can make a difference when we carry someone else's burdens for them or even with them, although we can't force anyone to do the same for us. If there is a message in this movie, I think it's this: we can never know how far the ripples of our lives and good deeds go, and sometimes - whether we know it or not - we can inspire people, no matter how fruitless and desperate our efforts can seem to us. We see this effect in at least one of the characters."The Homesman" can seem like a movie without a point, a movie where the journey means more than the destination, but there is a point to it. At times it's subtle and other times it hammers things to your head, but it's still tonally intact and everything works in favor of the story. It doesn't end with a bang, and although I would've liked a stronger, more simple ending, it's still quite fitting in its own way.Hilary Swank is absolutely great in this, and she is the beating heart of the story. Tommy Lee Jones is great too, both in very different ways. The three crazy ladies are played by Miranda Otto, Grace Gummer and Sonja Richter. They are all good, and although their craziness can be seen as "movie craziness" instead of something absolutely real and subtle, their performances work nonetheless. Supporting cast is very good as well, featuring good performances from William Fichtner, Caroline Lagerfelt and more.This film is well shot, although you won't get many majestic scenery shots or anything else that's visually outstanding in itself. In fact, you don't even notice the camera most of the time. I like this approach in a character-driven story. Marco Beltrami composed a good score. At first it seems a little out of place (I'd blame the editing department for this), but it finds its place soon enough. It's nothing too grand, which again is fitting.Tommy Lee Jones directed and co-wrote this little gem. Thumbs up for the other writers too, and I might just check out the novel this movie is based on. "The Homesman" hit me like a ton of bricks. I didn't feel it at first, but it just refused to go away. Its narrative isn't as tight or obvious as in most crowd-pleasing movies, and it's certainly not an exciting action movie (like westerns often tend to be), but it cuts deep if you allow it. It's not a bad cut, even though it may feel bad at first. When it scars, you feel better about it.Recommended for lovers of character-driven drama, even those who don't normally like westerns. But most of all, recommended for broken hearts and minds.