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| Bruce Dern and Will Forte in Nebraska |
Cast: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Stacey Keach, Bob Odenkirk, Mary Louise Wilson, Rance Howard, Tim Driscoll, Kevin Ratray, Angela McEwan, Glendora Stitt, Elizabeth Moore, Kevin Kunkel. Screenplay: Bob Nelson. Cinematography: Phedon Papamichael. Production design: J. Dennis Washington. Film editing: Kevin Tent. Music: Mark Orton.
Like Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo (1996) and Martin McDonagh's Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), Alexander Payne's Nebraska takes place in the hollowed-out heartland of the United States. But where those movies went for satire and dark comedy, Payne is going for something tonally more subtle. Pathos nudges up against humor in Nebraska's story of cantankerous old Woody Grant (Bruce Dern), whose emerging dementia persuades him that he has won a million dollars from one of those dodgy but legal magazine subscription promotions like Publishers Clearing House, which filed for bankruptcy earlier this year. Despite the protests of his long-suffering wife, Kate (June Squibb), and his sons, David (Will Forte) and Ross (Bob Odenkirk), he continues to insist on going from his home in Billings, Montana, to collect his winnings in Lincoln, Nebraska, even if he has to walk there -- he has lost his drivers license for DUI. After the highway patrol finds him walking along the freeway and brings him back, David finally gives up and agrees to take him to Lincoln, knowing that the trip won't end well but hoping it will put an end to the delusion. The film is longer than it should be -- the side trip to Mount Rushmore is unnecessary -- and there's a whiff of condescension in its portrayal of the residents of the decaying small towns of middle America, but it raked in Oscar nominations for picture, cinematography, and direction, and well-deserved ones for Dern and Squibb.
