Film: Nebraska. Director Alexander Payne, 2013

A little bit of a disappointment delivered by a favorite director… This is not “About Schmidt”…far from it. It lacks the drama, the surprise, the painful realization of a wasted life catching up shockingly with an unsuspecting Schmidt. In “Nebraska” the main character is too senile, too confused to be able to experience or sustain a drama. Actually, we don’t know if he is capable of experiencing anything. Impossible to identify with him. All the characters are predictable cliches. The black and white vision seems like a whim – carries no meaning. It oddly reminds of a Bogdanovich film without a Bogdanovich message…Bob Nelson’s script does not rise above the anecdotal. Overall – it seems like Payne took the path of least resistance and tried to do tell a story that he already knows how to tell.