Nebraska (3/5 Stars)

I’m not entirely sure what Writer Bob Nelson's and Director Alexandar Payne’s relationship with the north middle of the country is, but they sure don’t seem at all impressed with it. For example, the film is shot in black and white but this doesn’t have anything to do with a particularly dark plot or mood. Instead it seems to be a judgment on the location of the movie, the empty spaces and depressed towns between Billings, Montana and Lincoln, Nebraska. It’s like Payne didn’t think they deserved color. Nothing is going on so you might as well not try to liven it up.

“Nebraska,” is a comedy and as the comedy it is trying to be it is perfect. The little hitch is that it is attempting to satirize sparseness and boredom and even a perfect satire of such subjects will invariably move slow and contain fewer jokes than the usual comedy. We are treated several times to scenes of people drinking beer, watching TV, or both. This reviewer finds that such scenes lend an odd feeling of unaccomplishment. The characters are doing exactly what I myself am doing while watching it. 

At times though the movie rises from its slumber to deliver some really good material. My favorite involves the introduction of Woody Grant's overweight nephews, Bart and Cole to his son David, played by Will Forte. David is not the most successful man in the world and sheepishly explains that he only sells stereo equipment in Billings. The nephews don’t respond because they don’t have jobs. After an awkward pause, Woody’s brother speaks up. "Bart here did some jail time.” Such is the excitement in ‘Nebraska’ where nothing happens, everyone is unemployed and overweight, and alcoholism is rampant because, fuck it, what else is there to do. In the end though, this is what keeps ‘Nebraska’ from being a ‘must-see’ movie. That is unless you are actually from Nebraska, than I guess you would have to see it because, I guess, what other movie is set in Nebraska. Then I suspect the people in the middle of the country would hate this movie. I remember raving about "Fargo" once to someone from North Dakota only to find out that everyone there despised the movie's portrayal of their accents. This movie may work the same way, though I suspect the people who deliberately left the place for greener pastures may absolutely love it. 

The plot is set in motion when the octogenerian of the family, Woody Grant, gets it in his head that he won a million dollars in a sweepstakes competition. He can’t drive and he won’t trust public transportation so he attempts to walk to Lincoln, Nebraska where the company is located. His sons, David and Ross, played by Bob Odenkirk, try to explain to him that the newsletter is a complete scam meant to sell magazine subscriptions. “I didn’t even know they still did this,” David states. He’s right. I haven’t seen one of those ‘You may have already won a million dollar’ junk mail letters in about a decade. Nothing will dissuade Woody though from setting out time and again on foot and in bad weather. 

David finally agrees to drive Woody to Nebraska because the man is really old and doesn’t have anything else going for him. A pit stop in Woody's old hometown becomes a much longer detour. Father and son walk around and take a look at the old haunts. Everything is changed and nobody recognizes Woody. Except at the bar. People recognize Woody at the bar. Woody tells everyone in the town that he has won a million dollars and for some incredibly odd reason everybody believes him.

Here, Payne’s satire of Middle America perhaps becomes too mean. It may be a little too much to believe that everyone believes Woody’s story about winning the lottery, even after his sons try to explain that it is all just a scam, but these apparently are really desperate people living in really quiet desperation. The family descends on Woody complaining about how his alcoholism cost them money over the years and demanding that they get a share of the winnings. They won’t take any talk of a scam for an answer. Everyone really really needs the money.

The performances are great, and especially noteworthy because they represent some of the finest performances in several careers, one of which is an especially long career. That would be Bruce Dern, who at 77 years old, is in his first lead role in a good movie for the first time. His Woody Grant is a alcoholic mess of well-meaning dementia. Dern does a particularly good job of seamlessly interweaving Grant’s lucid moments in with his delusions so they really seem like they are coming from the same very old person. We learn a lot about Woody Grant in this movie and by the end you sort of hope he gets his money, not for him but for what he wants to do with it. Will Forte does a great job as well in the thankless task of the straight man holding together a cast of crazy characters. Will is mainly known for comedy, notably SNL and 30 Rock, and is yet another example of a comedian ably putting together a dramatic performance. Then there is Bob Odenkirk, who has done better things (Mr. Show, Breaking Bad) but is always a delight to see on screen in any incarnation. Final mention of the two nephews played by Tim Driscroll and Devin Ratray. They gather some of the best laughs by just sitting next to each other and grinning. It's good stuff.

I expect the Academy will love this movie way out of proportion because it is about an old white person, which coincidentally is the majority demographic of the Academy. I bet they all like it even more because it is in black and white even though there is no particular reason for it. The last movie Alexander Payne made about an old white person was “The Descendants.” That won the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar, which was just a really terrible thing to happen. I have the sneaking suspicion that the writing for this one will be similarly nominated. It’s good writing, but it’s not great because it can't be. There isn't the ambition that is generally needed to make the writing great. Here’s hoping that it at least won’t win anything. 

The Descendants (3/5 Stars)

Good Grief.

 I fear that my recent cycle of poverty is hurting my ability to empathize with the problems of the super rich. And this is something that is brought up right away in director Alexander Payne's new movie "The Descendants." The main character, a man named Matt King, confides to us in voiceover that people think his life is paradise simply because he lives in Hawaii. But he says that he has the same screwed up family problems as anybody else and they hurt all the same. True, this is true, I guess. Matt King's wife has just been in a boating accident and now lies in a coma in the hospital. The doctor tells him that she is not going to make it. His daughters aren't taking it very well. His father-in-law blames him. He finds out that she was having an affair. Screwed up stuff. But Matt King, unlike regular people, is also the descendant of Hawaiian royalty and is the sole trustee of a some of the last pristine area of Hawaiian real estate. When it is sold, it will be sold for many millions. He has a successful law practice and has the ability to send his daughters to private schools. He looks like George Clooney. So the whole wife thing, that sucks, it does. But I figure this guy will do just fine.

There's a fine amount of drama here floating about in vague meandering directions. It turns out that the wife has not been the best of people. So we have several scenes here where people get mad at a lifeless body. In one example, Matt King storms about the hospital room saying rather hurtful things at her. It is a frustrating thing to watch of course because the main impetus for the scene can't respond or defend herself in any way. So we don't really get both sides and don't really know what is going on. It is obvious that it is important though because people are wailing and yelling. But without explanations this feels more weird than dramatic. Perhaps flashbacks would have helped. A good deal of the rest of the movie involves Matt King telling family and friends that his wife will not wake up. It may seem cold of me to say that there were too many of these scenes, but I don't know anything about this person. There is no connection here. Things need to be explained a little bit more. (I have seen a movie which had a scene that worked involving a guy getting mad at his dead wife who had been cheating on him. That was Marlon Brando in "Last Tango in Paris," and it was one of the best and saddest scenes I have ever seen. The parallels in these two scenes make George Clooney's outburst pale in comparison. Watch both of them and compare the acting styles. I prefer Brando's. It is more intimate. It starts off softer. It builds. There is a crescendo of anger with denouement of true sadness. It has a rhythm to it like great music. Clooney is dramatically correct but all over the place.)

The humor in the movie basically consists of Matt King's daughters acting out and him telling them to watch their mouths and not do weird things. Along for the ride is Sid (played by Nick Krause) who says dumb surfer things. I've seen Alexander Payne movies that were much funnier. Something like "Sideways" for instance much more brilliantly blended intelligent drama with true action and true hilarity. We have here a lot of dramatic grief but very little comic relief. Even Shakespeare knew to throw in some ribald jokes here and there. The movie has moments yes, and some rather good scenes where Matt and his daughters track down and confront the guy his wife was having an affair with, but overall the movie lacks that extra nerve or zest that makes a great movie. I will be disappointed if this gets a lot of Oscar Nominations and something like Bridesmaids blanks. A wife in a coma and people crying about it does not automatically a great movie make.

 One more thing, the voiceover this movie employs. It is there for the first fifteen minutes of the movie and then it disappears for the last three fourths of it. Why? Is the narrator no longer speaking to us anymore? Have the rules of the storytelling changed a quarter of the way through the story? There are certain rules about voiceover that should be followed. For one, it should never be used to tell us what is going on. This is generally redundant and often lazy. Two, voiceovers should be consistent. Good examples of this are "Amadeus" which is voiceover via real time confession; "Forrest Gump" which is voiceover via real time storytelling. "Fight Club," which is voiceover via a brain thought process. A master of voiceover is Director Terrance Malick. See his movies "The Thin Red Line," "The New World," and "The Tree of Life." Voiceover there is used as poetry which floats over a scene in meditation. All of these examples have consistent voiceover. They are entwined into the very structure of the story. We know who is speaking and who they are speaking to if they are speaking to anybody. They don't simply cease happening or seem like they are switching from narration to private thoughts and back again. All of these rules are broken in "The Descendants," and then the voiceover disappears entirely. This is shoddy writing and again I hope it does not get nominated for Best Writing. There really is better stuff out there.