I sort of thought that Mattie and LaBoeuf would end up together, especially after the boarding house banter where he threatens to kiss her.
LaBoeuf: A little earlier I gave some thought to stealin' a kiss from you, although you are very young... and you're unattractive to boot. But now I'm of a mind to give you five or six good licks with my belt.
Mattie Ross: Well, one would be as unpleasant as the other.
Their arguments seem like a cliche prelude to a romantic connection, but that never transpires. It makes sense to me that that would be part of the parody — defying our expectations of romance. When LaBoeuf died, I had a sense that it was a way of saying he was weak somehow — maybe he lacked grit — and that he wasn't, in the end, man enough for Mattie. Is that wacky of me? Or maybe putting him in that position would detract from John Wayne's leading man status.
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This was another aspect of the movie that was, apparently, different from the book, which had no hint of romance between Mattie and LaBoeuf. I didn't buy it in the movie, frankly, maybe because Campbell and Darby had very little chemistry. And maybe that goes back to their acting skills.
Good question!
I don't think there was a hint of romance -- I think bad movies have trained us to look for it where it doesn't belong.
The early scene could be seen as foreshadowing romance, but it can just as easily be seen as painting the characters: he's a horny cad, she's a sensible girl.
The fact that she never even gives him a second thought might be an element of feminism: In typical testosterone Hollywood, calling a kiss "unpleasant" is just playing hard to get. In the real world, "no" means no unless there's some other indication that it's flirting, which she never gave.
It may even be viewed as parody by exclusion. (Stick with me on this one -- I'm aware that it's a stretch.) The film sets up the usual ridiculous beginning: Silly pretty boy flirts but girl says no. Everyone knows where it's supposed to go at the end: Girl relents and falls in love with pretty boy, only because that's the way it's supposed to work. By giving the setup (which shouldn't really set anything up because she flatly rejected him and should have no interest in him) and excluding the ending, the film leaves the viewer wondering what happened. But when the intelligent viewer thinks, "Why did I think they would get together?" and realizes that getting together would be rewarding the cad and showing the girl to be weak, an epiphany occurs: It's the other films that miss the mark, not this one.
Voila! Parody. It's a stretch, though!
Ben, hon, I think I already said that in my post:
Their arguments seem like a cliche prelude to a romantic connection, but that never transpires. It makes sense to me that that would be part of the parody — defying our expectations of romance.
Aw, crap. I misread what you said. For some reason, I read your sentence as saying a romantic connection, had there been one, would have been done in such a way as to defy our expectations of romance.
But you like how I fleshed out your idea, oui?
The hint of romance is definitely there. When LaBoeuf walks into the boarding house, Mattie peeks at him coyly, obviously finding him attractive. And there are several other small moments between them set up to establish some kind of sexual tension.
Yes, Benny, nice fleshing.
Great minds think alike, although they rarely agree. (tee hee)
It is clear that LaBoeuf is light. He failed to capture his man back in Texas. Cogburn treats him like a joke. He is a dandy who is too carefully coiffed for life on the trail. He shoots a horse. And while he does, in the end “do his duty”, he doesn’t have the hero’s death of being shot in the chest. Instead, he gets beaned on the head with a rock. So you are right, kc, no grit.
The scenes in the boarding house are pretty much the way a romantic comedy would play it, so it is easy to suspect that the movie will slip into that rut. How refreshing that it didn’t. Mattie is driven young woman, and she is looking for substance, not fluff.
That lack of grit reminds me of a Hemingway anti-hero, the same way that Rooster reminds me of a Hemingway hero. In The Sun Also Rises, Le Bœuf would be Le Juif: Robert Cohn.
I didn't think there was much potential for romance. It would have taken the focus away from John Wayne. It's the same way Mattie's annoying behavior gave John Wayne some of his best lines and the younger, more virile LeBouf had to be a dandy with a foufy name so as not to challenge Wayne's manliness. I think a lot of the characters and relationships were designed with the restriction that this was still John Wayne's party. Nobody was to steal his thunder.
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