Currently trying to recall if I’ve ever seen the state of Nebraska in color. Been to Kansas. That was in color. Never really seen a Husker home game on TV. Oh, wait, I know. That Meryl Streep/Tommy Lee Jones film from last year. That took place in Nebraska (or the first part at least). Assuming it was filmed on location, I have indeed seen Nebraska in color. Woo.
Woody Grant (Bruce Dern) is a dusty, addled, timeworn codger. I love characters like this because I get to cash in on all sorts of 50 cent words like “taciturn”, “curmudgeon” and “laconic.” I’d use “wizened,” too, but I’d hate to give even the slightest implication of wisdom; there ain’t nuthin’ wise about this withered fogey. Anyhoo, like many old men, Woody has gotten a wrong idea into his head and he just can’t shake it. For consecutive afternoons, his stereo-selling, mediocre bachelor of a son, David (Will Forte), has had to track him down in the streets of Billings. Woody is intent on walking to Nebraska. From Montana. Go ahead, look it up; I’ll wait. See, Woody got the equivalent of a Publishers Clearing House notice in the mail and interpreted the deliberately-misleading conditional language as a promised payoff of (cue Dr. Evil) “one million dollars.” Everybody knows
this is bogus except Woody. He knows that if he’s in Lincoln, Nebraska by Monday, he gets $1 M.
Eventually David gives up and decides to drive dad to Nebraska. If you can’t beat ‘em, make sure they don’t get hit by traffic. David’s life can’t possibly be headed in the right direction, anyway. His face and body language suggest with each scene that he may as well have a lame adventure. As David plays babysitter to this reticent doddering alcoholic, he and we both wonder what an old man needs with $1 M. The magic happens in the detours where we realize, if possible, the townspeople of Woody’s formative years are even lamer than Woody. A family reunion also allows us to bring June Squibb back into the picture. As Woody’s blunt, over-protective wife Kate, June is on the short list of my favorite actors in 2013. Her very frank dialogue reminiscing through a cemetery is a classic, ending with a moment I’m probably never, never, ever going to forget where she taunts a deceased boy she knew back in the day by pulling up her skirt and announcing this is what he missed out by being a dullard. Can’t say my grandmother has ever done that. But I can’t say she hasn’t, either.
Alexander Payne here made a Coen brothers movie, or a very sharp facsimile of one. Who else would give you a study in b&w plaid? Who else would give you a film with a serious, dour tone but a constant underlying feeling of “this is a joke, right?” Who else would begin a scene with eight unremarkable men all staring at an unremarkable football game? It is a feat to make a film 
good enough to resemble a Coen brothers production, even if the feel isn’t quite original.
Nebraska is as quiet as films get. It’s unassuming, slow and monochromatic. The stark black & white cinematography perfectly matches the feel of this journey to nothingness and the doddering old man searching to fill his own void. This tale could have been told in 1950 or 2050 or any time in between. Nebraska is not a must see and it will almost certainly disappoint anybody excited to see it. It stars an actor who hasn’t been relevant since the 1970s and pair of veteran comedians (Forte and Bob Odenkirk as brothers) who don’t do any comedy. Not much happens and many of the conversations are awkward. And yet, it’s absolutely brilliant in subtle (and a few unsubtle) ways. It won’t appeal to a broad audience, but for those whom it does? This will be among the best films they’ve ever seen.
♪Neeeehhhhhhh——braska
Where the coot comes collecting fantasy …
Where the locals squawk
And gab and talk
Gold diggers plain for all to see
We know he belongs to a plan
And the plan that we know is a scam
And when saaaaay, “hey!
Don’t bother with this waaaaaay, hey!”
We’re only sayin’, “Don’t go, old man, to Nebraska!
Nebraska
N-E-B-R-A-who-cares?-A
Nebraska! Don’t go!” ♫
Rated R, 115 Minutes
D: Alexander Payne
W: Bob Nelson
Genre: Coen brothers
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Coot wranglers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Color junkies
♪Parody inspired by “Oklahoma”
