Nebraska (2013)

NEBRASKA  (2013)  ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
    D: Alexander Payne
    Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Stacy Keach,
    Bob Odenkirk, Rance Howard, Mary Louise Wilson
Northern Plains Gothic, with Bruce Dern as Woody Grant, a crotchety old coot living out his twilight years in Billings, Montana, and fighting back with sheer orneriness against the combined forces of age and the universe. When he gets a sweepstakes come-on in the mail, the bold print convinces him he's won a million dollars, and Woody decides he has to go to Lincoln, Nebraska, to collect his prize. (The fine print he never bothers to read. Why the hell should he?) So the movie's about Woody and his son David (Will Forte) heading off to Lincoln together and what happens to them along the way. It's about the bond between fathers and sons, or, as my colleague Dr. Sporgersi put it, "a chick flick for guys." It's affecting without ever tipping over into sentimentality. Dern's no-bullshit performance takes care of that. It was shot on location in black and white. The set design is unadorned. Payne's approach is just to go into these places - houses and diners and bars - and film there. There's no Hollywood polish at all. When Woody walks into a tavern, you know what the place smells like. When he tips a bottle to his lips, you can practically taste the beer. There are as many funny moments as melancholy ones, and some are both at once. Take the scene at the cemetery, where Woody, his wife Kate (June Squibb) and David have gone to visit the graves of some of Woody's relatives. While Kate delivers a hilariously unfiltered monologue about all the sins and imperfections of the souls beneath the stones, Woody stands off to the side, not listening, or maybe not hearing. He's in another world, lost in time, in the folds and currents of a memory that's maybe starting to slip. Dern doesn't do much except stand there, but it's enough, in a movie where words don't always mean a whole lot, and silence, sometimes, tells you everything you need to know.