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"Nebraska' is filmed in black and white, the choice of director, Alexander Payne. Bruce Dern stars magnificently as the irascible, contrary old man on a quest. He won best actor at the Cannes Film Festival. Jane Squibb stars brilliantly in her cranky but humorous and sharp-minded role as his wife. She was nominated for an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress. Alexander Payne won an Oscar for Best Director.
This is about a man in his early 80s seeking a reason to go on living. Like Ulysses, like Jason, he is on a quest to seek his fortune. He is the American, mid-west questing hero. Along the way of his journey, he encounters the barriers which he must overcome to find his fortune and is finally successful. He may not even be aware that he has won something he never worked for, but he has won, and the story has a poignant and touching ending.
Director Alexander Payne chose to shoot this film in black and white. This evokes a feeling of nostalgia, a yearning for things past, and the flat landscape of Northern Nebraska does not lose anything from not being in brilliant colour. The landscape may be flat, dull and repetitive but it is important, for it is here that our food is grown. It is the breadbasket of the country. The inhabitants we meet along Willy Grant's journey may seem dull, eccentric and humorous with their country ways, but these are brave people who battle climate and market prices to eke out a living while growing our food. Often laughed at, they are the unsung heroes who give us our daily bread.
The movie opens with a shot of Willy Grant walking on the shoulder of a highway. He walks with bent back and quick step as if he is going to collapse under the weight of gravity, but his step is one of determination.. A police officer stops and asks him what he is doing. He lives in Billings, Montana, and he tells the officer that he is walking to Nebraska. He is taken to the police station and David (Will Forte) his younger son, is called to pick him up.
No one, not even his cranky, exasperated wife played by Jane Squibb, can talk him out of going on this journey. He has lost his driving license and no one will drive him to Nebraska, so he decides to walk.
The two sons discuss the situation. The older one thinks their father has Alzheimer's. The younger one does not think so. He believes that his father is seeking a purpose to go on living. During the conversation, the older son points out that their father has been a drunk who never paid attention to them whatsoever. This seems to be his excuse for not helping his father realize his quest.
Drunk and neglectful father or not, the younger son, David, finally decides to drive his father to Lincoln, Nebraska, so that Willy can realize his dream. It seems that Willy received one of those pseudo magazine subscription flyers which screams in bold letters: "You have won $1,000,000." Willy doesn't read the finer print that says, "If you have the winning numbers." He assumes he has won and is on his way to Lincoln to collect the money.
When the younger son David can no longer talk any sense into his father, he agrees to take Willy to Lincoln. What happens on their journey is the bulk of the story. Staying for a day in Hawthorne, Nebraska (which my Nebraska-born husband tells me is a fictional town) Willy encounters his past and picks up his old habit of drinking excessively. When old-time friends and relatives find out he has won "the lottery", well, suddenly he has tons of friends and tons of family, all with their hands out.
His adventures include being robbed by his nephews, being hospitalized, from which he runs away, being humiliated in front of his former friends, being disappointed and finally, being vindicated through the exceptionally good graces of his son, David. The man who humiliates him is Ed Pegram, his former business partner, played well by actor Stacy Keach.
As the son, David, hears bits and pieces of his father's past, he becomes aware that Willy's life has not always been so mundane. He was shot down in Korea; he had a former love who never quite got over him; as well, it is said that he was in love with a "half breed" (so-called by Ed Pegram) and wanted to divorce his wife. But Ed says he talked Willy out of it, since in those days, divorce was a sin. Ed notes that, over the decades, "God must have changed His mind."
There are some marvelously humorous scenes with Jane Squibb as the long-suffering wife, as she visits a grave yard, and inadvertently becomes a party to a hilarious theft by her sons. She also protects her husband from some greedy relatives and gives them a comeuppance, complete with the F word, which shocks these straight-laced farmer types.
In Lincoln, Woody learns the truth of the scam and gets no money. The office person asks the son if he has Alzheimer's. The son says no - that he just believes what people tell him. She replies, "That's too bad."
David asks his father why he wants the money. He says - so that he can have a new pickup truck and leave something for his sons. David tells him that they don't need anything and why does he want the truck when he can't drive. Turns out he just wants it "to have."
On the way back to Montana, David makes a few choices which will enrich Woody' s life and his standing in his hometown of Hawthorne. Woody leaves the town with pride, not aware that he has, indeed, won the lottery.
To win the lottery is to get something one has not worked for. Woody has ignored his children and never loved his wife. He does not deserve to have such a loyal wife and he does not deserve to have his sons. He has not earned it.
But he has won. He has won the lottery of marriage and parenthood. He has won the loyalty of his wife and in his son David, he has won solid gold devotion.
Without putting forth any effort, Willy has won the golden fleece of life.
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- Reviewed in the United States on August 29, 2014
- Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2015
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BOCQUET BrigitteReviewed in France on November 25, 2019
L'histoire d'un fils qui se rapproche de son père un peu sénile en allant au Nébraska.
