Insanity and helplessness abound in “The Homesman,” a Western that sends a clear message—America’s harsh and unforgiving frontier is not for the faint of heart.

Set in mid-19th-century Nebraska, the film centers on two individuals—Mary Bee Cuddy (Hilary Swank), an unmarried, middle-aged woman who has both financial security and the respect of her community but is “too plain,” and George Briggs (Tommy Lee Jones), an unscrupulous frontiersman who illegally works another man’s claim.

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Spurned by yet another potential husband, Cuddy volunteers for the formidable task of returning three mentally ill wives home to Iowa, almost exclusively a man’s job. She enlists the help of Briggs after agreeing to save him from being lynched. The ensuing journey is harsh and unforgiving as the desert relentlessly erodes the will and sanity of the two protagonists. As Reverend Dowd (John Lithgow) says, “People like to talk about death and taxes, but when it comes to crazy, they stay hushed up.”

“The Homesman” is blessed with a wealth of fabulous performances. Hilary Swank is spellbinding as the selfless Cuddy—an unshakeable and headstrong guardian angel who never found someone to love her but was is nevertheless determined to devote herself to others. This is a role that few other than Swank could have executed so effortlessly. Jones, who has made a name playing eccentric roles, is also to be commended for his nuanced depiction of an archetype. The supporting cast is a who’s who of character actors, including John Lithgow, James Spader, William Fichtner, and Jesse Plemons. Someone by the name of Meryl Streep also drops by.

The film also effectively captures the distinct Western ambience. For that, Jones, who doubles as director, cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, and composer Marco Beltrami are to thank. Prieto, who has gained wide acclaim for the photography in “Brokeback Mountain,” “Babel,” and “The Wolf of Wall Street,” recreates the lifeless and colorless desert without which the film could not exist. This stark atmosphere is compounded by an adept scoring job by Beltrami that consists mostly of wistful strings and hollow winds, all of which make for a bare and pure frontier sound.

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Unfortunately, “The Homesman” rests on a clichéd story which, in attempting to distinguish itself, becomes a convoluted, confused mess. The film begins unequivocally as the tale of a woman so consumed by a sense of helplessness that she becomes selfless to the point of self-destruction. With Cuddy as the focal point, this would have been a more affecting and heartbreaking story. Instead, “The Homesman” shifts emphasis midway to Briggs and all of a sudden the film becomes a run-of-the-mill reformed convict narrative. We see Briggs soften as he learns to care for the three insane women, and when a turn of events gives him the opportunity to simply abandon the quest, he pushes onward regardless and delivers on his word. A maverick with no respect for the law is saved by an empathetic woman and gradually learns to abandon his selfish ways—been there, done that.

The film ends on a bewildering note that is excruciatingly unsatisfying. In a film where hopelessness is a major motif, it seems unfair to expect a clean, happy conclusion. Even the most tragic films, however, can provide some kind of catharsis. “The Homesman” could have closed with healing or with relapse but chooses instead to follow neither path. Will George Briggs continue to be the better man that Mary Bee Cuddy has inspired him to be? The film does not seem to care and the final minutes weave layer upon layer of frustrating misdirection. The credits roll as George Briggs dances drunk on a boat, shooting his pistol randomly into the distance.

“The Homesman” is wonderful on paper, and it’s certainly not terrible. Headlined by two Oscar winners and tackling some dark subject matter, there is no reason it shouldn’t have lived up to Jones’s last Western, the highly acclaimed “No Country for Old Men.” In the end, the film’s potential only makes its flaws more unbearable as the audience wonders what could have been.

—Contributing writer Steven S.K. Hao can be reached at stevenhao@college.harvard.edu.