Nebraska impresses with brilliant direction, acting
Films this year have been full of striking visual films. Reaching into space, dystopian futures and comic book universes, audiences have had a lot of spectacle thrown their way. Alexander Payne’s Nebraska might just be the polar opposite of that spectacle. Yet, it is a different kind of delicious.
Pot of gold · Bruce Dern plays Woody, a grumbling man who believes he has won a million dollars through the lottery. Nebraska follows his journey from his home in Montana to Lincoln, Neb. to claim a non-existent “prize.” – Photo courtesy of Paramount Vantage
Set in the plains of Montana, Wyoming and, yes, Nebraska, the film follows the journey of Woody Grant, played by Bruce Dern, and his son David, played by Will Forte, to collect the $1 million Woody believes he has won in a contest. The contest is actually a mail scam and essentially everyone in the film knows this other than Woody. He refuses to believe that and attempts to walk the 815 miles from his home in Billings, Mont. to the address where he can presumably collect the money in Lincoln, Neb. Eventually David gets fed up and decides to humor him and drive him to Nebraska. Their journey is a rocky one, although the conflict never reaches feverish heights.
At the center of it all is Bruce Dern. He is fantastic in his role of Woody, playing the mostly deaf, mostly oblivious, cranky old man with a brilliantly subdued comedic pulse. His timing is flawless and he carries the film with equal skill to moments of both hilarity and of heartbreak. Will Forte, of Saturday Night Live fame, manages to play an excellent straight man to Dern’s quirky antics, showing off dramatic acting chops previously unseen in MacGruber and 30 Rock. The interactions he creates with Dern are quite fascinating and the way they play their characters’ evolving relationship is beautifully executed. Every gag is delicate, hinging on silence as much as the words actually being said.
June Squibb, who plays Woody’s wife Kate, steals many of her scenes with a dynamite performance. Her irreverent banter about Woody’s past life and all the sexual advances she had to fend off from other guys in town must be some of the most hilariously inappropriate words ever uttered on camera. It’s a wonderful counterbalance to the subdued comedy that the rest of the cast brings. Bob Odenkirk, fresh off his immensely popular role as Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad, and Stacy Keach, a captivating character actor, both give performances that are more highlights among this very deep and talented cast.
The film is a series of dichotomies: a comedy and a drama, a road trip adventure and an examination of family, a whimsical flick with a dark edge. The story is amazingly simple, but mined for every nugget of gold it can offer. The payload is surprisingly rich, even from a film that brings very hyped expectations with it.
That silence, that subdued quality that the majority of the cast takes advantage of to make their comedy resonate even more, permeates the rest of the film as well. The open emptiness of the states through which Woody and David travel offers a sense of quiet that most films cannot reach. The music rarely strays from one often-repeated background song and Nebraska is filmed in black and white. Compared to a film such as Gravity, Nebraska is almost a sensory deprivation experiment.
One downside to the flick is its pace: Nebraska is very slow. But a film that focuses as much on silence and on the lives of septuagenarians is bound to hold a slower pace. And if someone is not fully focused on the action, they run the risk of getting very bored and losing interest. Suffice it to say, this film is not sympathetic to the viewer with a short attention span. Yet that shouldn’t deter someone from catching this movie. It’s easily one of the funniest films of the year, that at the same time packs a serious emotional punch.
It will certainly be interesting to see Nebraska competing with the other awards contenders this year, as it offers a very different sort of viewing experience than Gravity or 12 Years a Slave. Those films strove to immerse the audience with orchestral grandeur and elicit emotions from the powerful connection that they formed. This film is no orchestra; it’s more like a blues solo, simple and minimalistic. Gravity is a film that you have to see in theaters to fully appreciate its majesty. Nebraska is the same way; you should see it in theaters, but for the exact opposite reason: watching it out of the immersive experience of a movie runs the risk of missing out on some of the film’s most subtly brilliant notes. And this beautifully crafted film certainly deserves better.
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