SOME PEOPLE ARE TRULY ASTONISHING IN NEBRASKA
All films are “political” because power is omnipresent, even the feel-good portrayal of small-town America provided in Nebraska, directed by Alexander Payne. Woody Grant (played by Bruce Dern) is not enjoying his life as a disheveled octogenarian father in Billings, Montana. One day Woody receives a letter from a marketing firm similar to Publishers Clearing House in which he believes that he has won $1 million. Since he is not allowed to drive a vehicle and evidently cannot afford a bus ticket, he walks on foot outside the city limits, headed for Lincoln, Nebraska, to redeem his award. Police, who have relevant power, catch him the first time. His son David (Will Forte) locates him the second time, returns him home but soon responds to his kindly father’s pressure by becoming the key decisionmaker in the film by offering to drive him to Lincoln with a side trip to Mount Rushmore over the objections of his mother (June Squibb) and brother (Bob Odenkirk). Before reaching Lincoln, they stop in a small town in Nebraska (the actual filming is in Plainview and other small towns), where Woody has many friends who are at first willing to believe that he is about to become a millionaire. When the letter falls into their possession, his former business partner Ed (Stacy Keach) cynically reads the letter before his friends at a local tavern, where Woody suddenly enters to observe that he is a laughingstock. Although there are two hospital visits en route, and Woody appears to agree to abandon the trip after the humiliation, he leaves the hospital unannounced one night and proceeds on foot again toward Lincoln. But he is soon collected again by his son, and they drive to Lincoln anyway. David asks his father what he wants to do with the million and is humbled by the reply. Mature filmviewers may recall how they felt when their parents died, how they wish that they had done more for their parents before their death. Nebraska shows what one decent son did for his father, both on the trip to Lincoln and on the trip back home. MH