Film Review: Nebraska

You could win seven-figure lottery jackpots, priceless trinkets and more money than you know what to do with, if you believe the deluge of spam emails that bombard our inboxes or the junk mail that clutters our doormats.

The key word here, of course, is ‘could’.

Companies pray on greed and the unfulfilled dreams of people struggling to survive and it’s only when you delve head-first into the small print that you realise your chances of claiming that glittering first prize are just as remote as if you’d paid your money and plucked seven numbers out of the ether.

Nebraska is a bittersweet road movie about a curmudgeon, Woody Grant (Bruce Dern), who takes one of those bogus prize notifications to heart and embarks on a cross-country odyssey to collect the million dollars he believes is waiting for him in the titular state.

The old man’s despairing son David (Will Forte) and his long-suffering wife Kate (June Squibb) try, to no avail, to make Woody see the light.

But the ageing father has a letter in his hand that clearly states he is due a massive payout and he intends to get from Montana to Nebraska, walking every arduous step of the way if he has to.

Shot in crisp black and white, Nebraska is another delightful character study from director Alexander Payne (Sideways, The Descendants).