Film Review: Ghosts on the roads not taken

The pair end up in Hawthorn, Nebraska, the fictional town of Woody's birth, where David learns there's more to his father than he knows.

Nebraska

Director:Alexander Payne

Cast: Bruce Dern, Will Forte, June Squibb, Stacey Keach, Bob Odenkirk

As he did with Jack Nicholson in About Schmidt, in Nebraska Alexander Payne transforms Bruce Dern into a crumpled, shuffling shadow of his 1970s hellraiser self.

Shot in haunting black and white, this typically Paynesque tale of small lives set against a sprawling landscape begins with the image of Woody Grant (Dern) battling the cold out on the highway outside his hometown of Billings, Montana.

When he is stopped by a patrolman, Woody grunts and points, and it is only later when his son, David (Forte), picks him up at the station that we learn he was on his way to Nebraska, hundreds of miles away. Why? To pick up the$1-million a sweepstakes letter in the mail says he's won, of course.

Woody is not all there. Years of drinking have left him in bad shape and his exasperated family don't know what to do about it. His wife Kate (Squibb) is a tough, no-nonsense type with a sharp tongue who has reached the end of her tether.

David's brother Ross (Odenkirk), a local TV anchor, hasn't forgiven his father for his less than stellar parenting skills. It is left to David - looking for escape from the drudgery of his small town life as a sound-system salesman and the break-up of a relationship - to entertain his father's fantasy by offering to drive him to Nebraska to collect his "winnings".

And so the stage is set for a low-key, melancholy, touching and often darkly hilarious road trip that explores the complexities of fathers and sons and the ghosts on the roads not taken. The pair end up in Hawthorn, Nebraska, the fictional town of Woody's birth, where David learns there's more to his father than he knows.

Payne himself is from Nebraska, and while this is not necessary to know to appreciate the story, it is a factor in the familiarity and tenderness with which he treats the environment and sad immobility of his small-town characters with their simple hopes and dreams.

Like another Nebraska, the album of stripped- down, woeful ballads by Bruce Springsteen, but with more chuckles, Payne's film shows us the universalities at the heart of ordinary lives fighting against the seemingly uncontrollable forces of an ever-changing world.

A strong ensemble of secondary characters - led by the legendary Stacey Keach - add another layer of authenticity to what is one of the most bittersweet and subtly effective films of the year.

• 'Nebraska' opens at cinemas today