Nebraska (2013)

Nebraska (R) - Review

"Drive, He Said"

An elderly father by the name of Woody Grant, who is either on the verge of absolute dementia or just plain rotten stubbornness, receives a letter in the mail that he has won a million dollars and becomes enamored of the idea. Despite his family's warnings and condemnations about the fraudulent letter he is resolute to get to Lincoln, Nebraska to claim his prize, even if he has to walk the whole way from Montana. Only his youngest son David is willing to give in and drive him, and thus begins a long overdue bonding over the road and a couple of beers. But when his old home town and extended family hear of his new found fortune, old friends and foes have a thing or two to say to the Grant family.

Alexander Payne (The Descendants, Sideways) makes another bid for Oscar gold with this fabulously small yet heartfelt Midwestern comedy that, like it's protagonist Woody, doesn't have a mean bone in it's body. Bruce Dern plays the old codger Woody with mesmerizing genuineness. The veteran actor's face is a mask of disheveled hair and confused expression, but whether its senility or just old plain orneriness is one of the many things to be discovered here in Dern's Oscar Oscar caliber portrayal. Woody's opinion about Mount Rushmore?  "Just a bunch of unfinished rocks.  Only one that has any clothes is Warsh-ington," This type of  humor works in mysterious ways, is family friendly (except for one needed F-bomb that probably earned Nebraska it's R), and is very welcome. David, his son, is nicely downplayed by SNL alumni Will Forte (thankfully without all his usually stuttering or gaffing). David wishes to spend more time with his father, and along the way he really gets to know the man his father is, where he came from and who he wants to be.

That is Nebraska's true joy, that of organic discovery of a person, the shifting of opinion over time. This is most noticeable in the script with Woody's wife, at first shes seen as an abrasive shrew that he constantly complains about (with apparent due cause), and yet as the film goes on we get to know her as truly caring for and protecting Woody (she's just believes in tough love). It shows a grand mastery of screen time and it wraps itself around nearly all the characters, even those redneck yokels that must surely appear in any small town America film. It is a pure delight to have it come off so natural and unforced and still maintain reality (which is almost solely due to Dern's amazing performance) something I could not say for The Descendants.
Filmed in a delicious black and white, the film is an old family photo album filled with images and stories that no one ever bothered to explain.  Now opened it's bursting with photos of half remembered faces and names just on the tip of your tongue (better ask Mom), but when it all comes rushing back there is that priceless warm feeling of remembrance, of family.

8.5 Lincoln's Ears out of 10 (GREAT)