The Homesman

The Homesman (2014) is a frontier drama directed by Tommy Lee Jones, and you can watch it online on iFILM. The American West, decades before it was tamed. Three women break under the brutal weight of pioneer life, and someone has to carry them home.

That someone is Mary Bee Cuddy, played by Hilary Swank — devout, blunt, used to handling everything alone. Her job: haul the three women by covered wagon from Nebraska across the plains to a minister and his wife in Iowa. She knows she cannot do it solo, so she hires George Briggs, a low-down drifter she pulls off a hanging rope. Briggs is played by Jones himself.

Adapted from Glendon Swarthout's novel, the film fills its margins with Meryl Streep, John Lithgow, James Spader and Hailee Steinfeld. Jones strips the western of its usual heroics; his frontier is about endurance, not glory, and beauty sits right next to madness. Stream The Homesman (2014) online on iFILM.