NEBRASKA directed by Alexander Payne (USA, 2013)
Today is Father’s Day in Italy so it seems the right day to be reflecting on this movie.
As with Payne’s About Schmidt & Sideways, character comes before plot and goes some way to explaining why the premise of the film is so contrived. We have to take it as a given that Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) is gullible and naive enough to believe that he has won a million dollars in a magazine’s prize draw even though none of his other personality traits make this particularly credible.
Woody is cantankerous, fiercely independent and unsentimental. Thick-skinned and mule-headed, this old man shows no particular affection towards his wife or his two sons.
On the contrary, he seems to regard the younger son , David (Wil Forte), as a schmuck. This negative judgement gradually softens as, unlike the older sardonic son Ross, played by Bob ‘better call Saul’ Odenkirk, David has a limitless patience and tact. He alone is prepared to humour the old man’s obsessive demands rather than concede that he should be confined to a care home. Continue reading
