At this point in Alexander Payne’s career, he can be considered as a family man when it comes to his storytelling. Lately with his films, he seems to be interested in exploring family dynamics. In his 2011 film, The Descendants, he dealt with family troubles in the paradisiacal backdrop of Hawaii.
In Payne’s latest family portrait, Nebraska, he focuses on a family in America’s heartland. What’s similar to both films, however, is that he deals with issues such as what it means to be a family and the challenges that bring families closer and create new memories.
Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) is an elderly resident of Montana who believes he has won a million-dollar sweepstakes. His wife, Kate (June Squibb), and son, David (Will Forte), see it as a ruse. Nevertheless, Woody is determined to journey to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect his supposed fortune, and David reluctantly volunteers to accompany him. While on the road, Woody and David run into some trouble as they encounter friends and family to whom Woody might owe money.
Bruce Dern’s performance paints his character as someone who is hopelessly and heartbreakingly optimistic. There is one scene where we have a point-of-view shot from David’s perspective as he wakes up with his father hovering over him, asking with a childlike excited if they are going to collect the money that day. He is a man of a few words, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know what’s going on in his head. His expressions of contemplation and determination in regards to his goal say it all.
If Bruce Dern's character is a man of a few words, June Squibb's is a woman of many. She doesn't have a filter, saying whatever is on her mind, whether it be in the film’s highly comical cemetery scene or the climactic family argument. Every time she wasn’t on screen, I wished for her to return with her abundance of unapologetic sass. You simply can’t get enough of her. She will say anything without any fear of consequence.
Will Forte does remarkably well in a dramatic performance that’s refreshingly out of the norm from his comedic acting that I was used to seeing back in his time on Saturday Night Live. Being the usually witty actor he is, Forte doesn’t feel out of place at all because of how well he connects with Dern. His role as a dutiful son is significantly likable because of how selfless he is with doing what he can to make his father happy.
The father-son dynamic portrayed by Dern and Forte is the film’s most relatable aspect, with certain moments that have the potential to resonate, including that of sitting in a bar and sharing a few beers together.
Aside from the film using some well-known performers, most the cast is made up of little-known actors. This allows the audience to view everyone as being a part of a real, American family, rather than giving us the feeling of watching a collection of actors we’re already familiar with acting as a family.
Phedon Papamichael makes a beautiful use out of black-and-white cinematography to heighten the sense of the small-town feel of the heartland. It provides a feeling of going to places that are stuck in time with the simplicity of the lifestyles and the friendliness of the towns’ inhabitants.
A few of the more memorable shots of the film are long takes that focus on members of the family sitting on a couch attempting to make innocent, yet painfully awkward, small talk. At times, you won’t be able to help but shift uncomfortably in your seat. These scenes feel almost improvised because of how you can sense that the family is trying to think of other topics to discuss, almost desperately grabbing at anything, providing some genuine family discomfort.
The film’s photography also employs impressive landscape shots of the seemingly endless fields throughout the states that the family travels through. The view of the empty fields can be seen as a symbol for the emptiness that David feels in his relationship with his father, but a better way to look at it is that they can be seen as blank canvas on which to create new memories.
The screenplay by Bob Nelson embraces the old, yet true, cliche that as long as you have family, you can consider yourself rich, and that theme becomes more evident as the film goes on, especially in the last half hour. The narrative is simple in its telling, but complex in its views of the family at the center. Nelson’s story captures a family from a different part of the country, and gives a taste of what life is like out there.
Similar to The Descendants, director Alexander Payne incorporates a mixture of offbeat humor and bittersweetness, the kind that can be seen in a Jason Reitman film. The movie also carries the bleakness of chasing the dream of an impossible fortune, similar to what can be found in German director Werner Herzog’s 1977 film, Stroszek.
Payne knows how to make the audience laugh at the perfect moments, and reflect during others, encouraging the viewer to think about his/her own family. Nebraska is a realistic, familial experience, with all of the interactions being authentic enough to make it seem like the audience is peering through a living-room window, or sitting right there at the dinner table. Payne might as well be saying, “Welcome to the family.”
Final grade: A
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