LFF 2013: Nebraska *****

Descendants director Alexander Payne has created such a powerhouse of a film in Nebraska that focuses the attention fully on the trials and tribulations of one family teetering on the brink of collapse, exquisitely shot in black-and-white. This intriguing monotone choice highlights the despair and humdrum at the start, but curiously sharpens the senses along the way, conjuring bursts of uplifting colour at the end in the mind when things are on the path of resolution for the discontented but utterly charming characters.

Booze-addled and aging head of a grown-up family of two sons, Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) believes he has won the lottery, and ventures forth on the highways of Montana to Nebraska (the lottery office’s HQ) to claim his prize, a million-dollar sweepstake. His estranged but loyal son David (Will Forte) always comes to bring him home from the authorities to his mother, Woody’s nagging wife, Kate (June Squibb). However, Woody is so convinced that he has won a prize, David decides to indulge his fantasy and drive him there. The pair takes a road trip that is also a momentous journey for the whole family, with a few home truths surfacing, and new bonds made.

Dern and Forte are superb in this as the embattled father and son, both forever miscommunicating but persisting nevertheless, because there is the underlying bond of love, whether it’s easily reciprocated or not. Cannes winner Dern’s grizzled and embittered Woody has moments of joviality and juvenile revival, especially when he returns to his hometown near Nebraska as local hero. It’s a heartbreaking and poignant cry for help too, in not wanting to fade away in one’s winter years. Dern brings a warming and infectious spirit to Woody, all utterly compelling to watch within the framing of the stunning cinematography from Phedon Papamichael (The Descendants).

However, the show-stopping scene is Squibb at her finest who speaks her mind as Kate with such blunt determination that it’s a triumphant turning point and delightful to watch – expletives and all. The character is out of the picture most of the film but is the passive-aggressive force that’s needed to shake the Grant male population into action, and wake them from their mundane acceptance.

Payne has created a fascinating character-driven film, with a near old-school Hollywood candour to it, as its characters lay bare their emotions. It has a humble reverence too; part in thanks to its warts-and-all revelations and character flaws, translatable whoever the audience is. Nebraska is one of the quiet and confident successes of BFI LFF 2013, and it’s not surprising there is Oscar talk.

5/5 stars

By @FilmGazer

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