‘Absolute treat’ of a film coming to Thame Cinema

WHEN? Saturday, March 15 – Nebraska – USA 2013, 110 Minutes, 15 Certificate; Directed by Alexander Payne, Starring Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb.

WOODY Grant has decided to walk from his home in Billings Montana to Lincoln Nebraska, a distance of some 850 miles. He has received a winning $1 million sweepstake ticket in the mail, and intends to go and collect his winnings, despite his family’s attempts to explain that the winning ticket is a scam sent by a magazine publishing firm.

Woody, a cantankerous and sullen man, chronic alcoholic and in the early stages of dementia, has not been a particularly good husband or father to his wife Kate and two sons, and is now on the verge of being put into a home. But when Woody makes repeated attempts to resume his walk, his younger son David sees the futility and attempts to prevent him, and offers instead to drive his father there, perhaps giving them both a last chance to reach some kind of understanding and kinship with each other.

The drive takes them via Woody and Kate’s old home town of Hawthorne Nebraska, a place hit by chronic unemployment and economic decline, where they stay with Woody’s brother and meet up with extended family members, giving David the opportunity to learn something of the man his father used to be. Alexander Payne’s funny, poignant and bittersweet film is arguably his best to date, and deals with his familiar themes of family and ageing, the compromises and disappointments of life, and above all with masculinity and the emasculating consequences of economic decline.

The magnificent black and white cinematography captures the lonely melancholy of Nebraska’s empty landscapes as well as the sedated boredom of faded towns where no one has anything much to do any more. And the acting is peerless, notably a bravura turn from screen legend (and Oscar nominated) Bruce Dern as the fragile and belligerent Woody, and from June Squibb, also Oscar nominated, as the gleefully foul mouthed and furious Kate who steals every scene she’s in. A sympathetic and understated story of the pathos of ordinary lives and an absolute treat.

For more information about some more amazing films coming to Thame soon, visit Thame Cinema 4 All’s website