Nebraska movie review

A very simple and yet effective film, the director of The Descendents gives us Nebraska.

Nebraska is a comedy/drama from director Alexander Payne, and he gives us a film that is surprisingly engaging, especially considering it's simplicity. It's a black & white film about an old man, named Woody, who gets one of those fake lottery scams in the mail. Due to his old age he believes that it's real and decides to go to Nebraska to collect his winnings, and gets his son, David, to drive him there.

Now, the real main character of the movie, the way I saw, was David. He had to deal with his father, in not just comedic situations, but a couple of really heavy scenes. It could be argued Woody was the focus of the scenes, but David was the guy I was really invested in. And Will Forte does a great job playing the character, he shows a lot of diversity in such simplistic ways, it's kind of amazing. It sucks that he's not getting any recognition from the award shows (probably because he was Macgruber), because the dude deserves to be noticed.

A word I've said a lot in this review is "simple", and I have a good reason. This film utilizes simplicity a lot. It's never upscale, it doesn't delve out of reality. This film is so simple and real that it makes this story captivating, and it makes the story feel real. Unlike most other films where it's clearly not in reality, this movie totally feels like it could happen. And I can actually see something like this happening, which is an element I feel has common place with Alexander Payne. They're very real, yet never too real so it gets boring.

I feel this film does an amazing job of blending comedy and drama, like my favourite film back in 2011 50/50, this movie does a great job of switching back & forth. You can have one scene be totally hilarious, and then the next scene can be very emotional and atmospheric. That's the mark of quality filming, and Nebraska is certainly an example.

Final Rating
Nebraska is a beautifully filmed and yet very simplistic movie, with great characters, great acting, and good pacing of comedy and drama. There was a couple of scenes that dragged on, whether or not it was for a joke or a dramatic moment, they took a while to get going. But other then that, this is a great movie, I highly recommend this film to just about anybody. Some people may be bored by it, or put off by it's minimalist nature, but that's why I liked it so much.

Nebraska: 4.8/5