True Grit is nothing but a fairy tale hidden beneath the skin of a western. In traditional fairy tales, the difference between Humans and Animals is very thin. So much so that humans and animals can even share a common language.

When you come to think of it, the genre of Western has a lot in common with Fairy tales: in the Wild Wild West humans are basically nothing without Nature around us, and fairy tales occur almost exclusively in forests, mountains, meadows, villages and nature. In spite of their supposed technological advancement, the cowboys worship their cows and their horses, and heavily rely on Nature in all matters. Also, fairy tales are dealing with Justice. Just like Western. At first sight, the Coen Brothers make a perfect show to turn the "bildungsroman" of Charles Portis into a seemingly realistic movie, but look at it deeper, with your childhood eyes, and what can you see?

Mattie Ross is the hero and the narrator of TRUE GRIT. When she is 14 years old, her father is killed by an outlaw called Tom Chaney. Tough as nail, she is outraged about the lack of efforts of the local sheriff to find the culprit and bring him to justice.

So, she hires "Rooster" Cogburn. This is the first character in the movie called according to an animal. Jeff Bridges plays the old cow-boy, a gun for hire with a penchant for whiskey but still good at tracking people in the Indian Territory.

Later on, she meets Texas Ranger LaBoeuf. This is his real name, but I think it was not chosen randomly: Boeuf means "Beef" in French and this is how they pronounce it in the movie. Played by Matt Damon, LaBoeuf is a ponderous agent of the law who is quite full of himself and talks down Mattie at every occasion.

But eventually they overcome their differences and all three agree to go after Tom Chaney. And then comes the third animal: the Bear Man, Dr.Forrester. Loyal to his "totem", he is quite the wild man who lives in the wilderness, half-crazy.

With his help, they eventually discover a hide-out used by the gang Tom Chaney has found refuge with, and here you have also some animal connections: the leader is "Lucky" Ned Pepper and he wears sheep-skin leggings, and among his acolytes there is one whose only talent, it seems, is his ability to imitate animals at any given time (second frame).

Then, during the climax of the third act, Mattie Ross falls into a cave where she is beaten by a snake. She is saved by "Rooster" just in time, but loses her arm nonetheless.

So, in the end, we have humans whose "totems" are a rooster, a beef, a sheep. Mattie and Tom Chaney, the antagonists, are the only ones to be really fully-fledged humans. And they represent the good and the evil.

The snake, by biting Mattie, are kind of the weapon of hubris: even if she succeeds in avenging her father, she loses her arm in the process. A narrative device very common in fairy tales: you have to abandon something in exchange for something else. Was it worth it?

When we discover Mattie Ross, years later, it's in the shape of a grown woman, who remains as stubborn, principled and frank as her 14 years old self. She is distraught to find that "Rooster" Cogburn has died before she could see her again. Rooster, LaBoeuf, Bear Man, Ned Pepper and his sheep-skin leggings, the man imitating animals, all these people now seem consigned not only to her past, but to a legendary universe, a fairy tale, where humans were no more civilized than animals, and in which she was the hero princess who could talk to those animals and face them down. 

I confess that I have not read the book by Charles Portis which has acquired a cult status, so I cannot really drawn too much conclusions about those ideas, but the coincidences are really troubling. Anyone who claim that TRUE GRIT is a minor movie of the Coen Brothers would better think twice. There is more than what it seems at first look behind that so-called simple story.