Review of Nebraska

“Nebraska” a brilliantly deadpan road dramedy

3 stars

The opening scene of “Nebraska” shows Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) walking on a highway to Lincoln, Nebraska. This is before the credits and is a little slow going, yet it seems to completely establish Woody Grant as a character. He wants to go to Nebraska and he is not going to let anyone get in his way. Woody got a letter in the mail from a sweepstakes saying he won a million dollars, and can pick it up in Lincoln, Nebraska. This is obviously junk mail, but Woody is senile, yet this is not all that is going on; he sees the sweepstakes as the only thing he can cling onto in his seemingly empty life. He lives in Billings, Montana, so this would be a long drive.

Woody convinces his son David (Will Forte), to take him on a road trip to Lincoln, Nebraska. Woody’s hilariously judgmental wife, Kate (June Squibb) is strongly against this. Just about everybody knows Woody is senile and not very aware of his surroundings. Woody’s other son Ross, (Bob Odenkirk) does not support the road trip either. Yet David wants his Dad to be happy, and he knows he does not have much time left.

The road trip, and especially the adventures along the way, are often gut-bustingly hilarious, yet they are very deadpan and understated in a way that makes them so much funnier than if they had gone over-the-top. The film, so much of the time, seems to combine the Cohen Brothers’ quirky view of Middle America minutiae with “The Simpsons” view of goofy geriatrics. So many of the old-timers in “Nebraska” have an endearingly terse way of talking that I could not help but laugh, simply because of their rhythms of speech.

“Nebraska” is directed by Alexander Payne, who has an excellent track record, even though he has only directed 6 films since 1996. This may be the most heartless, soulless, and bitter of all of Payne’s films, yet it is so funny, in such an underplayed way, that I didn’t mind its misanthropic tone. Bruce Dern does not make by any means a likeable character; probably, the only conventionally likeable character in the film is Woody’s son, David, who is also the least interesting character in the film. I actually would have preferred it if Bob Odenkirk had switched places with Will Forte, and had the bigger part in the film.

“Nebraska” would be an extremely unpleasant and depressing film if it were not so funny in such a controlled and underplayed sort of way. June Squibb, who also played Jack Nicholson’s wife in the movie “About Schmidt”, is full of hilarious comic lines and monologues. She is a well-written character, and she brings her character to exciting, hilarious life. It is in black & white, giving it a beautiful, old-fashioned kind of feel, and the film’s look seems perfectly suited to it; it is set in an old-fashioned small town, highly reminiscent of my Dad’s hometown of Pontiac, Illinois. The trouble with so many of the people in the film is they are so naïve that they do not have much a perspective beyond their hometown, even if they have traveled beyond it.

The junk mail sweepstakes that Woody receives makes him a superstar in Lincoln, Nebraska, much to the chagrin of his sons, and his wife. When Woody and David finally get to the sweepstakes office, the way they both react is brilliant. I do not want to give away too much, because there is much joy to be had in seeing people’s reactions to things that happen to them.

 “Nebraska” does have a sense of superiority to its characters, and seems to mock them most of the time, but somehow it just worked; it was so in control of its tone that I wanted to applaud it. I loved the humor that “Nebraska” found in minutiae, vacant expressions, and ordinary everyday occurrences. In this sense, the film is a profound achievement.