“Nebraska”, the latest regional comedy film by Alexander
Payne (based on his own home state), written by Bob Nelson, does play a bit
like a screenwriting class exercise. The
lines among the various family members and townspeople, during this “road
comedy”, sound so metaphoric and forceful that they might have been designed
for a table reading. Is dementia (maybe
outright Alzheimer’s) associated with aging in country folk a suitable subject
for comedy. The large (nearly sold out)
audience at the Angelika Mosaic in Merrifield VA laughed with the characters in
their situation comedy, as I did. But
this is certainly not something I could have written, and I’ve been through an
eldercare episode of my own in recent years.
Dementia, for those who have to deal with it, is not funny.
Bruce Dern plays the gullible Woody Grant, who, as the film
opens, is trying to walk from Billings, MT to Lincoln NB to claim his
sweepstakes prize. He doesn’t understand
that he needs to have the winning numbers on his coupon. His wife (June Squibb) is appropriately
folksy and thinks, if he really wins the million lotto, she can put him in a
nursing home. The son David (Will Forte)
plays the dutiful son, always calling him “Dad”, and takes him on the thousand
mile drive, through Wyoming and South Dakota first.
As the film progresses, some real "50s sitcom" situations develop, over “owed
money” and a missing compressor, which more or less fulfills the comic function
of a Duplass “Puffy Chair”.
Paramount released this film under its indie “Vantage” subsidiary,
which it doesn’t use often; but it introduced the black-and-white film as “A
Paramount Release” to make it look old fashioned. I wondered about the artistic decision to
film in black and white, given the gorgeous outdoor scenery, truthfully on location.
The official site is here.
Wikipedia attribution link for Lincoln skyline. My only visit was in 1982.
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