Nebraska

I saw the movie at the Helsinki International Film Festival. It tells a story about an old man who is certain that he has won a million dollars and wants to get to Nebraska to collect it. His family is sure that it is a hoax but his son chooses to drive him there so that the thing wouldn't bother his dad anymore.

Everything about the movie is very low key and the pacing is quite slow. This comes from the choice of shooting it in black and white, style of acting, and the locations and events depicted in the film. For long periods, I found it a little hard to get immersed into the events on the screen and empathize with the characters. I kept thinking that the movie repeats what I did not like about Alexander Payne's earlier work About Schmidt. But then somehow the movie started to grow on me. I still feel there is almost weird resemblance to the road trip and family reunion Jack Nicholson's character goes through in About Schmidt but Nebraska has merits of its own. For one, the characters are quite well written. Even the supporting roles provide witty observations of different ways we might react to other person's fortune. Also, the acting is very good throughout the film. The main characters' lives have become unsatisfying and they are trying to deal with it in different ways. Even though it is a little frustrating to watch people who struggle to find anything meaningful to do or say, the script and the actors are able to draw a very accurate picture of everyday life as it sometimes can be. Here and there, they are able to provide a few laughs and even some satisfaction when the characters are developing, albeit slowly.

Overall, I'd end up recommending the film if you have enjoyed Alexander Payne's previous work.

Alexander Payne is one director who marches to the beat of his own drummer - films in Nebraska, uses black and white, and casts some parts locally to get the correct flavor. He doesn't miss a note.

Nebraska is the story of a family of usual dysfunctionals living where else but Nebraska - a quiet, distant father with a little dementia, Woody (Bruce Dern), his two sons, David and Ross (Will Forte and Bob Odenkirk), and their perpetually complaining mother Kate (June Squibb). David sells home electronics and just broke up with his girlfriend; Ross works for a news station and recently replaced the "talent" up front.

The current major problem is that Woody has received something akin to a Publisher's Clearing House certificate telling him he's won a million dollars. All he has to do is buy these magazines and check if the numbers are his. All Woody sees is that he won a million dollars. No one will take him to Lincoln to claim his prize so he starts walking - more than once - until David says he will take him.

On the way, they stop by his parents' home town and drop in on Woody's brother and his family - a scary bunch. Kate takes a bus in and shows David around the cemetery in a scene you'll never forget, trust me. Woody runs into his old partner, Ed (Stacy Keach), and as word spreads that Woody is going to be a millionaire, everybody wants a piece of him, including Ed, who says Woody owes him quite a bit.

This is really a character-driven film, with some of the most vibrant, fleshed-out characters ever on screen and some of the starkest landscapes, filmed in black and white, and giving the viewer the feeling of what it's like to live among miles and miles of farmland interspersed with small towns.

Bruce Dern gives an Oscar-worthy performance as a lifelong alcoholic who has escaped inside himself, a man out of touch and seemingly untouched by any events around him. As the outspoken Kate, June Squibb is absolutely hilarious - always yelling at Woody, threatening to put him in a home, complaining about him, but just don't let anybody take advantage of him, or you'll have to deal with her.

The sons mirror their parents, with David quiet and thoughtful but trying to bond with his father, and Ross, more confident and less sympathetic.

In learning about his father's background, in talking with his old girlfriend (Angela McEwan) David begins to see the man that his father once was and what shaped him. And he finds out that love is sometimes an unspoken thing, but it's there all the same.

A wonderful film, powerful in its simplicity. Don't miss it.

Bruce Dern gives the performance of his life. He is wonderful. He maintains the quality of tuning in and out of reality throughout the film. Typical of someone with dementia, you are never really sure if he's there or not. There is a moment in the film when he drives and you can just see him glow and come alive.

This is not a film for everyone because it moves slow, but true movie buffs will love it.

Filmed in black and white and bleak (if that were a color) it's a son that takes his father on a road trip

It's quietly poignant, with a lot of very funny moments in it. When the mother is in the scene, she steals every one.

The cousins are a riot and the family members are a cast of characters. This is the sort of film that you leave but doesn't leave you.

"Nebraska" offers viewers an unstinting view of some very unpleasant things: extreme decrepitude, boundless stupidity, greed and ignorance. There is also very deep, and very painful, love on display in this portrait of an embittered working class eking out a meaningless existence in a dysfunctional and remote place. "Nebraska" oscillates between cynicism and schmaltz, pulling off a wondrous kind of emotional alchemy that few films aspire to, let alone attain.

All of the acting is first rate, though the characterizations are rather broadly drawn. Will Forte plays a dutiful, sensitive, repressed son with seemingly unlimited patience for the eccentricities of those around him. He's the perfect foil for Bruce Dern's semi-catatonic, alcoholic ramblings (both verbal and spatial). June Squibb serves up hilarious venom to spice up the mix.

There were scenes in the movie that so perfectly captured the narrow, soulless, deadening ethos so prevalent in small-town America that I could hardly stand to watch them. It was almost as if the tire stores, bars, gas stations and motels of every desolate corner of America were rolled up into one set of visuals here, captured in stunning black and white cinematography.

I highly recommend "Nebraska."

Nebraska is one of those rare movies which very sweetly tell you that finally the story and screenplay are the kings of a movie irrespective of star power or studio backing.

Its a road film and I won't digress into the story. But its beautiful and I love the way Payne tells the heart warming story of an old man and his son and the son fulfilling a crazy desire of his father.

The movie captures the emotions of people and beautifully tells us how people change when they see the need in us.

Burce Dern is fantastic as the old man running after something which doesn't exist. He has the spirit and is not ready to give up. Forte is another fine actor who beautifully plays the loving and caring son who is willing to go the distance with his father. And finally there is June Squibb who plays Dern's fire brand wife. She has all the best dialogues in the film and humiliates her husband every time. But stands upto him when it matters.

A nice film to watch on weekends with family and friends.