Payne handles the natural confusion of aging with the same poised grace as the police officer in the opening scene, but Nebraska would be nothing if it weren’t for the stunning lead performance by Bruce Dern as Woody. His is a theater of subdued emotions that is hidden away beneath a weathered and angry face, and an Oscar nomination is imminent. A role this complex and played by an actor this good demands serious recognition, and although he probably won’t win this year at the Oscars — it’s too crowded a category — thankfully he already won best actor at Cannes earlier this year. In the most dramatically compelling role of Will Forte’s career, playing the younger son, he proves he has serious acting chops perfectly fit for the comic melancholy of an Alexander Payne film. The two share biting chemistry on screen, and they marry perfectly with Payne’s intended tone. By embedding both of them in rolling rural American landscapes, it becomes clear Nebraska is really a companion piece to The Descendants. Like that picture, Nebraska’s setting is in direct discourse with the characters and their desires. What the farmed hills symbolize shift as the characters do, usually tied in some way to a classic illustration of tradition and the old ways. Even the overall stylistic palette reflects a shift to the traditional for Payne, not only because of the black and white photography, but by simplifying composition and camera movement too. There’s even an old school swipe-edit to cut from a living room dialogue scene.

In a word, history. That’s what Nebraska is all about. Although it probably wasn’t intentional, the story is structured extremely similarly to one of the all time great existential masterpieces: Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. It’s another “on the road’ film, one that uses a journey forward to reflect on what’s in the rearview mirror. And, like that film, Nebraska has frequent tangential stops along the way that confront characters with their greatest past joys as well as their darkest demons. The main character of Wild Strawberries, Isak Borg, is also set to collect a prize of some kind, and he too has a troubled relationship with his son. This odyssey-like narrative framework evokes a sense of life passing as a whole, with its many unexpected pit stops along the way. All that remains are your choices and how you live with them. Nebraska’s journey is a bittersweet reflection on old lives looking back on life in the big picture, and it’s a heartening ride.