Sunday, February 16, 2014

Movie Review: Nebraska

Allison and I saw Nebraska today in our quest to see all the Oscar Best Picture nominees.  This is my 4th film and Allison's 5th, so we still have a bit to go!


PlotAn aging, booze-addled father makes the trip from Montana to Nebraska with his estranged son in order to claim a million-dollar Mega Sweepstakes Marketing prize.

Review: Ugh. Where to start. I disliked this film immensely while Allison thought it was okay. It is depressing and gray. Literally. The movie is entirely in black and white to add to the drabness of the plot. It is slow, not much happens, it is a peak into how I imagine life to be in all Yankee states. Bruce Dern does an amazing job as Woody, the boozy dad. He is 85% unlikeable and 15% sad. He seems to have some sort of mental problem but mostly seems to not have much ability for affection for anyone in the movie - his wife, children or siblings. As the plot {ha, what plot} unravels, you learn how his past probably led him to this path...but by the time we learned a little more about him, I didn't care. Dave, the son who goes with him is just sad. Deadend job, living in a lame apartment, girlfriend dumped him. The mom is an annoying bright spot in the movie. She nags and nags and nags, but you can tell she cares. And she's sassy! The one eff bomb? From the mom! Allison enjoyed it a little more because {to quote her} 'I like movies about old people.' This coming from the lady who works for Adult Protective Services, so I can see why she liked it somewhat, ha. The movie irritated me so much that I called Allison after we left to talk about it more! We agreed that it made us think and be grateful that our lives are in color! And we imagine the director/writer of the film would be happy that it made us think and be appreciative of our lives...but I still didn't like the movie!

2 comments:

Karen M. Peterson said...

I loved Nebraska so much. I found it funny and endearing and maddening and biting. I'm sorry you didn't like it.

Kelly said...

Is it bad that I don't even know what the nominated movies are? Ha!