Alexander Payne has made some incredible, touching and insightful road trip movies over the years. From
About Schimdt with Jack Nicholson, to Paul Giamitti and Thomas Haden Church as two middle aged men going on a wine route adventure before the big leap to marriage in
Sideways to George Clooney and his family tracking down the man who had an affair with his dying wife with his troop of daughters in
The Descendents.
Okay, The Descendents was not a proper road trip movie but it had elements of it - the traveling to a destination, self discovery, the travel shots and the road/journey as a metaphor for change.
Nebraska takes Payne and us back on the road, this time the destination is Lincoln Nebraska and a million dollars that everyone knows is not there - let's dig in ...
Bruce Dern plays the aging patriach of the Grant family who is determined to claim a bogus million dollar prize. His long suffering family - especially his last born son David (Will Forte) - have to get him to Nebraska for him to claim the prize which raises it's own complications.
That's the plot ,very simple, no fizz no fuzz. Nebraska feels like a 90-minute Savannah Dry ad, very very dry humour delivered with dead pan straight faces.
The movie is shot in black and white that kinda takes the shine and gloss out of eveyday life. It makes the mundane look super dull, almost documentary-like before Michael Moore made documentaries hip again. Yet there's beauty to black and white photography too which the film exploits. The pace also grows on you.
Nebraska is not only about beautiful travelogue shots in black and white, there are great sublte performances in this film. The performances are on point, Bruce Dern is brilliant as the old man who may or may not be losing his marbles.
June Squib is superb as the long suffering wife who is basically gatvol and throws a lot of verbal missiles that kept the audiances in stitches. Bob Ordenkirk aka Saul of
Breaking Bad fame is the douchebag older brother and Will Forte is the big heart of the film.
Although the film deals with family, nuclear and extended, issues of alcohol abuse, ills of small town life in an ever shrinking economy, child-parental resentments are all there in display.
Yet they are touched on in a very off-way, if the film was any funnier I would say it's a black comedy masquerading as an indie family drama. Nebraska, in it's own weird way has a lot of positive stuff to say about family and the virtues of bonding with your family. Yet don't expect it to be too colourful ... this ain't The Hallmark Channel ... and dont expect to be made to laugh like in Will Farrel's movies. Some of the humour has a bite to it.
I really enjoyed Nebraska's off beat-ness. It has its own pace and mood that kinda reminded me of
Barton Fink and
The Big Lebowski. It's a movie not too interested in plot but a character study that plays out as a road trip movie around a family.
Nothing beats road trips when it comes to self discovery and finding out new things about yourself. So we follow the Grants on their reluctant road trip, as they discover the joys and pains of family (nuclear and extended) , have some laugh out loud moments in between and some razor sharp comebacks to qoute to your own friends and family.
Rating: ****
*junk **almost bearable ***now we cooking ****almost perfect *****classic ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++