I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so bored during a movie as I was during Alexander Payne’s Nebraska. It’s the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry. I spent most of its nearly two-hour runtime squirming in my seat and trying not to fall asleep. Though it seems to have some sort of emotional impact in mind, the only thing it made me feel was painfully irritated.
The film stars Bruce Dern as “Woody Grant,” an old man who has received a notice in the mail telling him that he’s the winner of a million-dollar prize. Though the notice is nothing more than a magazine ad, he takes it as the gospel truth, forcing his son (Will Forte) to drive from Billings, Montana to Lincoln, Nebraska to collect the winnings.
Payne has created a world populated almost entirely by some of the sourest, most profoundly irritating characters I’ve ever had the misfortune of spending two hours with – and he’s done it all in black and white, draining the life out of the visuals in a way that is probably intentional but nonetheless frustrating. What’s worse, he gives the story a sickly-sweet ending, as if to apologize for putting us through 115 minutes of misery.
As for the actors, they do what they can with the one-note roles they’ve been given – that is to say, very little. Forte conveys little other than hapless frustration, while Dern seems to be doing his best impression of a toothless Oscar the Grouch. The supporting cast isn’t much better, though there’s little they can do with the caricatures they’re being forced to play.
I’m downright baffled by Nebraska‘s six Oscar nominations. It is neither compelling nor entertaining in any way. Someone should tell the Academy voters that a film’s quality is not measured by how difficult it is to watch.
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