I have no idea (I live in Scotland), but I recognise almost every character in the movie.
Woody Grant reminds me of my dad (obsessing over an old piece of junk he loaned out to someone decades before and singularly unimpressed by anything he saw, except when it came to his car), his wife could be my mother or Grandmother, and I have the distant relatives you only see once in a blue moon (usually at funerals) and the idiot cousins.
The difference with those are they'd rather help you out at the drop of a hat, than plan to rob you blind. (I hope. :p)
So it might be set in America, but the people could be from anywhere.
I absolutely loved this movie.
Can you tell? :D
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Butteoid
10 years ago
Just watched it and enjoyed it thoroughly. I made me wonder what a similar trip with my old man through his old haunts might have taught me about the man who was my father but remains somewhat a mystery to me a dozen years after his death.
I thought the depiction of rural America and its characters was right on -- I grew up on the East Coast but have lived in Montana 20 years.
I kept thinking of "The Grapes of Wrath" while watching "Nebraska." This isn't the first time flyover country has suffered from environmental disaster, and there's plenty of long-abandoned farmsteads from the 1920s still around here. The original maps of the U.S. labeled much of the American savanna "The Great American Desert" but railroads and land speculators lured thousands to come and try to farm there. When the Oglala aquifer gets sucked dry in a few years -- or poisoned by Canadian oil or fracking chemicals -- it will likely return to what is has always been, perhaps worse.
But the people who put up with all the hardships and stuck around that country certainly developed character, which was what the film's about.
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Boliwill
10 years ago
Butteoid,
Your post is pretty spot on!...I too just watched it a few nights ago and really like it...The film at times was very sad but also at times very funny...I too was thinking about my dad who is still alive as of this post but like you still somewhat of a mystery to me!
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