If you escape to the movies as a respite from some of the
harsher aspects of the real world, you might want to skip “Nebraska” starring
Bruce Dern. It’s a bleak movie with a lot of nothing: no color (filmed entirely
in black and white), flat landscape-less scenery of Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana
and lots of actors playing friends and relatives taking up space in living
rooms or at dinner tables but saying little, stuck in their own worlds of … of
what? I couldn’t even imagine. Grunts and vapid stares replaced any kind of recognizable conversation.
At the same time, this movie is filled with a powerful
story of love and hope and getting older and care giving and friendship and
family. The blank openness of the film leaves much for your imagination to
create the scenario of what it must have been like for the Grant family living
a tough existence in Billings, Montana.
Bruce Dern plays the patriarch, Woody Grant, who is
singularly focused on getting to Lincoln, Nebraska to claim his sweepstakes
prize of one million dollars from a magazine sweepstake promotional
company. His son David, played lovingly
by Will Forte, tries to explain to his dad that the sweepstake is a scam and
that his dad has not, in fact, won anything.
David is constantly tracking down his dad who is repeatedly escaping his
home or the hospital to hit the road to Nebraska.
I didn’t really begin to ‘get’ this movie until one hour and
fifteen minutes into it when Kate Grant (June Squibb), who plays the wife of
Woody, delivers a shocking and wake-up line in the film – I won’t spoil the
surprise here. June Squibb’s performance is outstanding as she plays all the
mid-western wives rolled into one who are fed up with vacant spouses that, on
the surface, cause more grief than they appear to be worth. Ms. Squibb has
played in a few movies (About Schmidt and Scent of a Woman, Meet Joe Black) and
appears equally noted for her TV work in Getting On (a new HBO series) and Mike
and Molly and Castle. I intend to check out her work; she’s that good.
I’m not sure how to rate this film. On the one hand, it’s
compelling and makes you think. On the other hand, all the components used to
convey the bleakness (filming style, landscape, casting, story line) took a
toll on my ‘enjoyment’ of the film, and perhaps that’s just the way it was
supposed to be.
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| Three ticket stubs out of a possible five
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