Nebraska: A Haunted Life – Review by Charles Conkin

Written by: Bob Nelson, Directed by: Alexander Payne

“Where are you going? Where are you coming from?” For Woody Grant the answers to those questions are easy. He is headed to Lincoln, Nebraska, traveling from Billings, Montana, to claim his prize money – one million dollars – via a magazine subscription service veiled as a sweepstakes. The only problem is that, in his old age, and declining mental capabilities, he no longer drives. So, he decides to walk. He knows he is getting older, and is determined to claim his prize money before the deadline.

However, his attempts keep failing. Each time he starts walking, someone (a relative, the local sheriff) picks him up and returns him home. Finally, his son David decides it would be best if he drove his father to Nebraska and put an end to the ordeal. Fearing these are the last years of Woody’s life, David decides to give his dad something to live for, even if it was a scam. David is in an unfulfilling job and recently single. He, too, needs this road trip.

So is this another road trip movie? Is it a father and son tale of reconnection? Is it about Woody facing his past? It is none of these. It is a story for David. Which turns into an opportunity to relive his father’s haunting past. This opportunity comes when they make a detour in Woody’s hometown of Hawthorne, Nebraska. Upon seeing family and town-people who knew his father, David traces the history of his father’s childhood and youth. It can be difficult to relive ones own past, but it is even harder to relive someone else’s. As he hears more and more stories about how nice, soft-spoken and gentle he was, the rough and distant father David knows begins to change.

“Your father could never say no to a favor,” an old girlfriend told David. That is a long way away from the man David knows. Woody is a scruffy, vulgar, brutally honest old man with a drinking problem and episodes of dementia. He is the man who told his son one night in a bar that he married his mother because she wanted him to and love never came up. Woody is the father who taught his sons to drink. David never expected his father to be a man to help people out of a jam. He is determined to understand where his father came from and why he needed so badly to get to Lincoln for an empty promise of a million dollars.

Woody is a tired soul. He saw his toddler brother die of Scarlet Fever in their shared bed. He gives hints to his abusive upbringing. He fought in the Korean War and “was never the same after.” He had many loves in his life but his wife, Kate, is not one of them. He does not have the respect of his friends and family. Woody is empty from a life of disappointment and hardship. Alcohol is the way he copes. If he could just claim his prize, he could buy a truck and an air compressor then everything would be better. He could restore at least a piece of what he feels has been lost. He could take back control over a life he has little control over in his old age.

One night Woody and David are in the streets of Hawthorne looking for the sweepstakes letter Woody dropped from his pocket. In frustration of the trip and late night, David snaps at his dad asking why the money was so important. Woody responds again that he wants a new truck and an air compressor. He wants these items because he wants to leave something for his sons when he dies. Woody believes his life has no worth but he still may have a chance to change that for his sons.

After witnessing this vulnerability of his father, David is determined to make it to Lincoln and see if they won. However, Woody collapses and spends the night in the hospital. David must take Woody back to Montana. As David wakes in the hospital room he notices his dad gone and tracks him down walking, in a hospital gown, on the road to Lincoln. He concedes and takes him the rest of the way to the prize office. Not surprisingly the numbers did not match and Woody is not a millionaire. Feeling sympathetic to the trek of the father and son, the prize office gives Woody a free hat with “Prize Winner” written big and bold on the front. David has a plan to give his father what he deserves and make two stops: One to trade in his Subaru for a newer truck and another to purchase a new air compressor. Woody does not win a million dollars but he gets his prizes. And the only smile from Woody we see is when David lets him drive and show off his “prizes” down the main street of Hawthorne while wearing his hat.

We all live by these questions: Where are you going? Where are you coming from? They give us purpose and more so, they form our identity. Woody is a product of where he came from but he is tired of that person. Woody wants something more. Something that can give him worth. He wants a new identity as a millionaire, but instead the “old” Woody is made new and whole in the generosity and compassion of his sacrificial son.

Rev. Charles Conkin is the Associate Pastor at Central Baptist Church in Lexington, Kentucky. He enjoys exploring the intersection of Christ and culture but mostly he just spends his time trying to keep up with his energetic daughter, Evelyn.