Nebraska

“He just believes stuff that people tell him.” Not only does Nebraska not simplify matters of life and death and serve them up in sentimental wrapping like The Descendants, it is essentially the antithesis of Payne’s previous film. Without attractive actors, warm colours and inappropriate optimism. Just like Woody. Nebraska is an intimate, melancholic two-generation road movie. Though it’s not entirely bleak or humourless, it is pervaded by a feeling of nostalgia for real values and sincere interpersonal relationships. The question is whether the father and son are compensating for their failures on most other fronts (relationships with women, careers) by seeking lost common ground (which is represented by, for example, their inability to understand each other’s jokes). David would like to be his father’s equal, but there is nothing there to live up to. Unless, like his father, he wants to accept the bar as his natural habitat and a bottle of whiskey as his best friend. Both men are innately unambitious, which eventually provokes at least David to step off the path of the perpetual loser, perhaps under the influence of his discovery that he is the bearer of a certain family legacy. The film’s unhurried pace and stark form are perfectly in accordance with the story’s non-action-oriented characters and with the setting, in which time has stopped (the film does not seem contemporary, which is partly due to the unfashionable furnishings of the residences and the simple clothes of the characters). Payne lets shots resonate and never employs sharp cuts, instead using slow dissolves and static compositions, which are often humorous in how many objects and how little movement they contain (the brothers watching television). Inspired by the directors of classic westerns (particularly Mann), he uses high-contrast widescreen black-and-white cinematography to capture both poetic (panoramas of the landscape) and naturalistic (suturing of a head wound) images. As a result, he succeeds in presenting a multi-layered portrait of a particular time and place. After all, Payne himself is from the American Midwest, thanks to which his depiction of the character’s nature is not one-sidedly caustic and mocking, but rather also takes economic factors into account, though – truthfully – not to a sufficient extent that would give us an opportunity to take the side of any of the supporting characters. The film somewhat contradictorily demands compassion for a pair of average Americans while taking an ironic view of the behaviour of many other average Americans with the causticity inherent in Payne’s early films. Why should Woody and David be heroes who managed to take control over their own lives despite the predestination determined by their environment? Well, just maybe because they are played by two actors who simply believe in them, from the humorously bitter beginning to the bitterly humorous climax. 90% (11/04/2014)

A bit about aging, a bit about sadness, a bit about family. And due to the swinging indie spirit, actually a bit about nothing. The acting in Nebraska is certainly excellent, but the directorial style of Alexander Payne manifests in the same way that once unpleasantly surprised me in Sideways and disappointed me in The Descendants two Oscar seasons ago. For a while, a story about ordinary people is told without any embellishment, only to then start oscillating between heightened moods of love, desires, or nostalgia. And this cycle repeats itself several times. Such dreaming and sobriety can satisfy many, which I actually understand quite well. However, I feel somewhat deprived, just like in the two aforementioned cases. (21/02/2014)

A bitter comedy about old age, its sorrows, and how life works. Except for the neatly wrapped-up ending, unfortunately, many human destinies probably don't end so pleasantly. I think everyone would wish to have such understanding and loving offspring as Woody Grant (superbly portrayed by Bruce Dern) found in his son David on the journey towards the dream prize. This black-and-white road movie has a huge soul and certainly has poetry, which is enhanced by the aforementioned lack of color. Alexander Payne has impressed me most so far with his excellent film Sideways, but I think Nebraska is a little better. (90%) (17/08/2020)

There is nothing more ordinary than a man realising in his old age that he has wasted his whole life trapped in a relationship and that every day he regrets the moment he said yes to his nagging and wrinkled wife. But this is just the first of many natural life themes that Nebraska so beautifully, humorously, and poignantly depicts. Perhaps for the first time, the Americans have managed to flawlessly put together a story that is more typical of classic Czech cinema in its ideas – and this peculiar family is full of character contrasts, petty disputes and envy of property that thanks to the excellent actors (I'm sorry that Dern probably won't have a chance to win the Oscar), great dialogues and effectively portrayed emotions. The black-and-white set design is just a bit of a redundant art element, but otherwise the Oscar nominations are absolutely warranted. 90% (23/02/2014)

In my ideal world, Nebraska is a film for the masses. An unpretentiously empathetic, restrainedly funny, sincere and sensitively pointed story about old age, death, a father-son relationship, and an unnecessary journey that gives everything an unexpected new meaning through a stubborn denial of futility. A film subject to the creeping biorhythm of the main character, who is not, in the true sense of the word, the protagonist, because instead of activity, he is instead the subject of conversation and actions of others. The extraordinary beauty of Nebraska is in the passivity of the old man, who will never become an easy object of emotion. We know little about him, and what we do know about him is rather contradictory. Payne thus has to work with extraordinary sensitivity with a world that lacks beautiful and positive characters and is dominated by imperfect, aging and abandoned people. The result is a lyrically captivating indie film that works suggestively with the entire landscape and the faces of the protagonists, in a sleepy rhythm and what here we call, with a bit a irony "humanity". In Nebraska's case, however, it really is an unpretentiously impressive view of "bare humanity". Payne's black and white redemption from the completely opposite colors of The Descendants. [80%] (12/04/2014)