On Looking Back with Nebraska

Thematically, Nebraska is about America looking back and it is therefore fitting that stylistically, it is shot in black and white. Alexander Payne’s film follows OAP Woody Grant a man in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, trying to reach Lincoln Nebraska to claim $1,000,000 from a marketing company. A $1,000,000 everybody but Woody knows is a myth.

To reach Lincoln, Woody embarks on a road trip with his son and is joined by the majority of his close and extended family as he nears his destination. The idea of the American dream being a myth has often been explored, yet its current examination is prescient.

The heart of America is being ripped out by a failing economy and growing inequality and it is in America’s heart that we find ourselves with Nebraska. Payne fills his frames with sparsity. From the crossroads towns with a bank, a couple of bars, a garage and a car rolling through to the vast, unmanned spaces of America’s farmlands; still standing, but no longer being worked. Lincoln is the biggest place we visit and even this feels devoid of life. Only the interiors of Woody’s family homes are full of vivacity as Payne reminds us that the work may have gone, but the heart of the people endures.

Amongst all this looking back (searching for a more secure time?), Woody insists on going forward. From the first scene where a police officer asks him where he’s going and Woody points forward he never defers from this path. At first we may believe Woody’s perpetual motion to be blind trust, but even when he discovers the myth and accepts it in his taciturn manner, Woody still moves forward; he realises the past is gone and the present is difficult. Woody simply wants to leave something for his children. Is Woody the modern middle American, screwed by big business but remaining resilient? Whether Woody is evocative of the current economic problems in America (an issue referred to explicitly once) or whether the whole narrative is suggestive of the greed and unfortunate naivety of different sets of Americans is up for debate. Either way, Nebraska remains a beautiful and touching piece of cinema.