I liked Jeff Bridges but Brolin and a few others spoke unnaturally formal for their characters. Didn’t fit. And the girl was okay but not great as an actress. People wanted to love the movie and I think that was part of the hype.
I agree; including Glenn Campbell’s character. His speech sounded like he thought he might be in a Shakespeare play. But because of The Duke, the original was better.
He and Kate Hepburn were great in Rooster Cogburn, too. In fact, I’d put Grit and Rooster side-by-side.
From what I understand, the “formal” language seen in the Coen movie was put in because it is closer to the novel...in reality, it is truer to how people would have spoken at the time...a look at the letters from that time period shows that even the least educated (by today’s standards; they didn’t go beyond 8th grade usually) spoke and wrote MUCH better than most students today.
CC