I am happy to say that I was finally persuaded to watch this movie by all the good reviews on the internet.  I was not disappointed.  Among many other things, I found the initially puzzling use of language and the featured thespians mastery of the acting arts more than sufficient to justify the high score I must finally give it.  So fascinating was this work that I conducted my own investigation to determine the various principles or "rules" that lent such a peculiar yet distinctive air to it.  It did not take me long to discover these principles for I have a talent in this direction in the way some people have for summing and spelling.  But I do not boast of my own gifts in this direction, for movie analysis is not everything.

In the first place, the language used was not one to take kindly to the use of contraction.  Nary a single apostrophe was used in place of a letter throughout the entire epic regardless of the speaker's station or virtue.  We do not have to assume that this drama's makers believe that people of the era and location did not use contractions in their every day speech.  Instead the actress Hailee Steinfeld gives the secret away in her own capable portrayal of the 14-year-old Mattie Ross.  Not only have 14-year-olds always used contractions in their speech, they have also always had a tendency to move about when speaking, or when engaged in any activity during their waking hours.  But Steinfeld's Mattie Ross calmly remains still as a middle aged spinster when delivering her demands and pronouncements.

And that is it exactly.  The novel True Grit was expertly written by Charles Portis in the first person from Mattie Ross's point of view.  Not the 14-year-old Mattie Ross, but the middle aged Mattie Ross; the very proper, very strong, Mattie Ross, survivor and possessor of true grit.  And in fact, every one in this memoir speaks out of Mattie's mouth.  So we have a tale populated by characters speaking and acting in varying degrees like middle aged Mattie Ross's and that stunt may as well have been invented by the Coen brothers such is their gift for strange stunts.   

Anyway, that is the secret to the style of the movie, and revealing it is my contribution here.  I did not think it necessary to present a synopsis of the story since that is available in various degrees of accuracy and skill in the many other reviews posted on the internet.