Meet Woody Grant. He’s an incredibly damaged old man, though
he doesn’t seem to be aware of it. After a lifetime of drowning in booze and
hurting his loved ones and friends, he finds himself in his golden years,
saddled with a wife he doesn’t particularly care for, father to two sons he
doesn’t really know much about and living an existence without a point until
the one day he receives a letter in the mail stating that he has won $1
million.
Well, technically it says that he’s won the dough provided
he has the winning numbers, but he doesn’t pay much attention to that part.
He’s decided that this is a sure thing, and he doesn’t want to trust the mail
with something as important as this; he has to go to their HQ in Nebraska, where he
intends to collect his million in person. The only problem is, no one will take
him. He doesn’t have a driver’s license (it’s never explained why, but it’s
heavily suggested that it was taken away from him due to a series of DUI’s), so
his only choice is to walk.
The police keep bringing him back, but like a POW in a WWII
prison camp, he’s got a one-track mind: escape. His wife Kate chews him out.
His son, Ross, gets angry and starts suggesting that the old man needs to go in
a home. The only one who feels sorry for him is Woody’s other son, David.
David’s kind of a broken man, himself. He ekes out a living selling Bose
speakers. His longtime girlfriend just left him. He’s a recovering alcoholic.
He worries about his father, but when he sees that Woody isn’t going to give up,
he decides to take a few days off from work to drive his father to the
sweepstakes office in Nebraska. (They live in Montana.) Awkward humor and
depression ensues.
Whenever you hear anything about NEBRASKA, it’s all about Bruce Dern’s
masterful performance as Woody. Sure enough, Dern kicks a lot of ass. He nails
the lost, inattentive old man perfectly, all at once vulnerable and a downright
motherfucker. But in all reality, this is really David’s story. Played as a
loveable, good-natured loser with the best intentions in mind by Will Forte,
it’s not just a road trip to Nebraska.
This is a journey of discovery. About himself. About his father. About his
family.
David doesn’t really know much about himself or anyone else.
He really wants to go to Nebraska
so he could spend some time with his father. Woody’s getting up there, and who
knows how much time he’s got left? David wants to know more about the man he
calls “dad,” to find out where he, himself came from.
He learns quite a bit. Over the course of the film, he meets
Ed Pegram, an old friend of Woody’s, who fills him in on how much of a deadbeat
Woody really is. In an old cemetery, he stands with his mother as she points
out all the graves of Woody’s parents and brothers, pointing out the sibling
that David was named for, a poor boy who died at a very young age in the same
bed as Woody. (She also points out the graves of people who tried to get in her
knickers back in the day, the perfect, hilarious counterpoint to the melancholy
of the dead. June Squibb, who plays Kate, brings a wonderful mixture of
sternness and vulgarity to this film. You can’t get out of this scene without
laughing awkwardly.)
David gets to see the house where his father grew up, an old,
broken dwelling unfit for a bum. In many regards, it’s the wilting shadow of
Woody. David also encounters an old girlfriend of his father’s and is shocked
to find that her and his mother actually fought over his father. From her, he
learns a bit about his father’s time in the army during the Korean War.
And then there’s the rest of the family. You see, they hear
that Woody’s won a million bucks, not knowing that he’s actually being scammed.
Now they’re looking back over the years of misery he’s caused them, and they
all want a piece of the fortune, especially Ed Pegram, who says Woody owes him
ten grand. (Ed’s played by the incredibly awesome Stacy Keach, with a dab of
tough guy and a wallop of smug assholishness.) Soon, it becomes apparent that
David doesn’t have anything in common with these people. He and his brother
Ross, polar opposites, come off as the most well-grounded people in the movie.
(Ross is played by Bob Odenkirk. He’s an ambitious guy, even though it’s a
little bit late in his life to get what he wants. He comes off as a hard-ass
with a heart of gold, especially in the scene when he and David decide to get
their father’s air compressor back from Ed, a debt that has been 40 years in
the making.)
Director Alexander Payne has his work cut out for him. It’s
hard to take this hodgepodge of humor, tragedy and feel-good story and make it
all stick together in a cohesive manner. This is the kind of thing that David
Lynch could handle without a problem. The same for the Coen Brothers. Then
again, Coen, Coen and Lynch are some of the greatest filmmakers alive today.
Payne doesn’t have nearly the experience they do.
(Come to think of it, it would be really interesting to see
what the Coens would have done with this movie. Same for Lynch. It’s exactly
the kind of material they would go with, if only in their different ways.)
Thankfully, Payne is so familiar with the story that he
might as well have written it himself. (He didn’t. The screenwriter’s name is
Bob Nelson.) At first, the humor is rather dry, but once you get in sync with
the film, you’ll laugh yourself hoarse, especially in scenes where others would
be horrified, like the scene in which David and Woody are looking for Woody’s
teeth, which he lost while in a drunken stupor by the railroad tracks.
NEBRASKA
is beautifully shot with special attention paid to the environment. At first,
it feels like Payne might be trying to pad out the movie, but as soon as you
start feeling engulfed by the landscape, you know it’s worth the time. You feel
like you’re there with the characters, even though everything is in glorious
black and white.
There’s just one problem: the title is kind of bland. OK, so
Nebraska is
Woody and David’s destination, and as a result, about three-quarters of the
movie happens there. But it’s just too generic for the story. It’s a small
complaint, though. NEBRASKA
is an excellent film. It’s great to see Bruce Dern back in action, even though
he can’t hear much and he staggers, rather than walks. It’s even better to see
Will Forte in a role like this. We all know he can do comedy, but now we know
that he can play a little bit of tragedy, too. NEBRASKA is great. It’s not for everybody,
but it should be. We might all end up like Woody some day, whose only purpose
in life is to cash in a form letter for a million dollars. Everyone should give
it a shot. Most will find it worth their time.
(Here’s a little trivia for you. You might recognize Woody’s
brother, Ray. That’s because he’s played by veteran character actor Rance
Howard. Both he and Dern appeared several times on GUNSMOKE. Come to think of
it, they were in THE ‘BURBS together, too. Small world.)
