Director: Alexander Payne
Talent: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk
Release Date: 6th December 2013
Though the title might stir connotations with Springsteen’s 1982 bolt from the blue, the mawkish, middle-American bombast of Alexander Payne’s oeuvre isn’t to be punctured by Nebraska, but given its most consummate ― if low-key ― iteration to date. In it, the elderly Woody’s (Bruce Dern) unshakeable delusion about a million dollar sweepstakes victory is reluctantly humoured by his son David (Will Forte) and they make the long drive to Nebraska to claim their non-existent prize, meeting characters from the old man’s past along the way. Despite this modest narrative, the film’s characterisation is bizarrely heightened, at least of its antagonists. Opportunistic friends and family are writ large as cartoonish villains (against, remember, a dull mid-Western backdrop shot in black-and-white), while Payne’s feel-good dénoument merely inverts the functioning of its sweepstakes delusion with another, decidedly more quotidian deception. As an exercise in managing disillusionment, Nebraska is not without moments of genuine humour and pathos, but one is left with the sense that Woody deserves better than the staged vindication on which the film closes. – OMH
