Alexander Payne returns to his native Nebraska to charm us with eccentric characters who will warm your heart.
USA
4*
Director:
Alexander Payne
Screenwriter:
Bob Nelson
Director of Photography:
Phedon Papamichael
Running time: 115 minutes
The Midwest of Alexander Payne is at times reminiscent of the kind of America that Umberto Eco wrote about, although the former tends to focus on suggestive details rather than the vapid excess at the heart of the latter’s fascination with the country.
Early on in Payne’s Nebraska, there is a single shot of signs lined up next to each other in a small town, pointing to different religious establishments. We read the first two, and they seem like the kind of signs you would find anywhere else, but then the third sign, similar in appearance catches our attention: “Masonic Temple”.
After a delightful detour to Hawaii in The Descendants, Payne returns to his native Nebraska for his particular kind of comedy, which works because his comic timing is perfect. He evinces a kind of humour similar to that of Buster Keaton, or some of Jim Jarmusch’s films, which takes the deadpan very seriously and can take almost any subject that would make us uncomfortable and turn it into comedy suitable for anyone older than first grade.
Nebraska opens in Montana, hundreds of miles from the title state, where we meet septuagenarian Woody Grant, his thin white hair completely dishevelled, as if he stuck his finger in an electric socket, on the side of the highway leading out of the city of Billings. He seems to be walking both aimlessly and determinedly. A policeman takes him back to his wife, who is angry with him for having left and probably also for not having stayed away.
Woody is either going senile or has Alzheimer’s disease (we never get a conclusive answer), but that is only one of his problems. Payne chose as his central character someone who ought to be unlikeable and who fits all the stereotypes of growing old: He has lost about as much of his hair as his mind, he is forgetful and simple-minded and always grumpy. And yet, in no small part thanks to a heart-warming performance by Bruce Dern who benefits from a very strong echoing board in his onscreen wife, played by June Squibb, we are always interested in and never scared by whatever foolhardiness he may be capable of.
He has his mind set on going to Nebraska because he got a “You’ve won $1 million” sweepstakes letter, and he wants to collect the money in person, conveniently overlooking the fine print that mentions the requirement of a subscription to multiple magazine titles.
After the third or fourth try, he makes to undertake the 850-mile trek on foot, one of his two sons, David, relents and decides to take time off work to spend with his speedily ageing father and prove to him the letter is a scam by driving to its distributor, Cornhusker Marketing, in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Woody’s forgetfulness, hardness of hearing and stubbornness make for a ride that is probably more interesting for the viewer than for his poor son, who believes a dose of reality will shock his father out of the dream he clings to with such passion that he may do something stupid to make it real.
They eventually end up in Nebraska, but before they get to Lincoln, they stop over in the town where Woody grew up and where his family and many of his old acquaintances still reside: Hawthorne. The characters that populate this rural hamlet all grab our attention the moment we meet them, and Payne easily succeeds in drawing our attention to the beauty of some of these people even while we may snicker at their almost unbelievable goodness.
That is particularly true of the utterly sweet and fragile Peg Nagy, the editor of the local newspaper, The Hawthorne Republican, whose history with Woody goes back a long time and whose fondness for him nearly breaks our collective heart.
The decision to shoot Nebraska in black and white is an odd one, as the desaturated images appear to have had their lifeblood sucked out of them, and although we are not alienated from the film, the monochromatic images in combination with the steadily approaching winter we feel when we notice the frost on the grass next to the highway create a gloomy impression that is at odds with Payne’s more kindhearted approach to his characters.
The theme of growing old has been a theme in storytelling since time immemorial, but in Nebraska Payne has struck exactly the right tone to show us no matter how different people are, a life shared with others is one that those others will appreciate you for.
Viewed at the International Film Festival Bratislava 2013