Nebraska. (15.)
Directed by Alexander Payne.
Starring Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk and Stacy Keach. 115 mins
I fancy most directors have fantasies about making a film in black and white, though few outside of Woody Allen get to live it out. Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants) gets his chance here with this small scale piece about a middle aged son (Forte) taking his geriatric and confused father (Dern) on a fool’s errand road trip. I guess the producers’ rationale was that it’s a film about old people with no stars and nobody’s going to go see it anyway, so why not let him.
Payne makes film that are routinely nominated for Oscars - because they are good films - but never win anything beyond the minor trinkets - because they are really good films. This latest one may be the best yet. Gene Hackman and Jack Nicholson were among those considered for the role of Woody, a man in his 70s who becomes convinced by a marketing scam that he has won $1 million dollars and starts walking to Nebraska to claim it. And though you would have loved to see either of those two come out of retirement for it, Dern is better. A bigger name would have been too strong a screen persona; they wouldn’t have had the vulnerability.
Woody is a man whose life and achievements have now drifted loose in time, are matters for half remembered conjecture and Dern is a performer whose 70s heyday is now perhaps only dimly recalled. We know he was something big back then, but it’s all a bit hazy (apart from Silent Running, of course.) I seem to remember him being quite a big performer, well capable of going eyebrow to eyebrow with Nicholson, which makes his understated performance here that bit more surprising. Quite often he barely seems to be acting at all; it’s like there really is a befuddled and unassuming pensioner at the heart of the film. It’s like a lead support role.
Will Forte, a comic performer brought through on Saturday Night Live, plays his son David as well-meaningly gormless. With their shared reluctance to take centre stage, June Squibb gets to give the big performance as the often hilariously plain speaking mother.
I’m of that school of reviewers who likes directors to show us there qualities through audacious camera moves or clever tricks; it can be easy to undervalue the simple-seeming virtues of telling a story properly. And Payne really is a master and Nebraska is an extraordinarily rich film.
Directed by Alexander Payne.
Starring Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Bob Odenkirk and Stacy Keach. 115 mins
I fancy most directors have fantasies about making a film in black and white, though few outside of Woody Allen get to live it out. Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants) gets his chance here with this small scale piece about a middle aged son (Forte) taking his geriatric and confused father (Dern) on a fool’s errand road trip. I guess the producers’ rationale was that it’s a film about old people with no stars and nobody’s going to go see it anyway, so why not let him.
Payne makes film that are routinely nominated for Oscars - because they are good films - but never win anything beyond the minor trinkets - because they are really good films. This latest one may be the best yet. Gene Hackman and Jack Nicholson were among those considered for the role of Woody, a man in his 70s who becomes convinced by a marketing scam that he has won $1 million dollars and starts walking to Nebraska to claim it. And though you would have loved to see either of those two come out of retirement for it, Dern is better. A bigger name would have been too strong a screen persona; they wouldn’t have had the vulnerability.
Woody is a man whose life and achievements have now drifted loose in time, are matters for half remembered conjecture and Dern is a performer whose 70s heyday is now perhaps only dimly recalled. We know he was something big back then, but it’s all a bit hazy (apart from Silent Running, of course.) I seem to remember him being quite a big performer, well capable of going eyebrow to eyebrow with Nicholson, which makes his understated performance here that bit more surprising. Quite often he barely seems to be acting at all; it’s like there really is a befuddled and unassuming pensioner at the heart of the film. It’s like a lead support role.
Will Forte, a comic performer brought through on Saturday Night Live, plays his son David as well-meaningly gormless. With their shared reluctance to take centre stage, June Squibb gets to give the big performance as the often hilariously plain speaking mother.
I’m of that school of reviewers who likes directors to show us there qualities through audacious camera moves or clever tricks; it can be easy to undervalue the simple-seeming virtues of telling a story properly. And Payne really is a master and Nebraska is an extraordinarily rich film.
