Nebraska

I’m revisiting this film since I’m traveling with Emma to her hometown in Nebraska tomorrow. We wanted to compare the actual nature of a small town to what Payne paints us in Nebraska, but we were distracted from any comparisons by the raw nature of this film. This movie isn’t as enjoyable as other movies I love, but is so real. The emptiness of the landscape compared to the emptiness they feel is so real. The desire to do more when there isn’t anything more around digs into a personal part of me I didn’t know I had. My grandfather in-law is losing his memory a lot, and seeing how actually Bruce Dern portrays that deterioration is also shockingly real. I don’t really think there’s another film that paints midwest existentialism as well as Nebraska does. “you seen enough?” “Yeah, I guess so. It’s just a bunch of old wood and some weeds” “you ever want to farm like your dad” “I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter.”