Final Rating: 4/5
The best thing about Cole Webley’s Omaha is how few questions it answers. In an age when films are so beholden to restating their premises, plots, and motivations, Webley crafts a poignant character piece that isn’t interested in any of that. With John Magaro placed front and center as the unnamed father in the film, what unfolds over about 80 minutes holds your attention due to the strength of its characters.
Omaha fits into the quieter corner of the road trip genre alongside films like Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy or David Lynch’s The Straight Story. A father and his two kids, Ella (Molly Belle Wright) and Charlie (Wyatt Solis) jump in their old, broken car with their pet dog in the first scene and spend the majority of the film in it. They embark on a three day trip to Omaha, Nebraska for reasons that aren’t fully explained until the film ends.
While most films will come out and tell you why the protagonist is heading to a specific location, that’s not Webley’s approach. He places the audience in the position of the kids. They don’t know why dad has suddenly decided to do this and their questions go unanswered. That this is not a recreational trip becomes apparent very quickly. At every stop, the question of whether there’s enough money to afford food and shelter looms. During every start, Ella and her father have to push the car to get the engine going.
By not putting us in the father’s head for the majority of the film, John Magaro’s job becomes much more difficult. Since the audience doesn’t know why the father is doing what he’s doing, every emotion on his face and thought expressed through dialogue becomes a piece to an even larger puzzle.
Every smile, frown, yell, whisper, and joke becomes scrutinized an additional time over. Deciphering what’s going on beneath the surface is a major component of the film. Though challenging, there’s ample reward in analyzing Magaro’s choices within the context of what’s happening on screen.
Ella and Charlie are trying to pick up on all of those details at the same time. Ella guesses early on that they’re moving, but as the trip becomes more stressful, they wonder if their dad hates them. Their dad only buys one kite that they have to fly together. He puts back soda and Lunchables at the grocery store checkout when he doesn’t have enough food stamps.
The situation grows more and more complicated with every passing experience. Fortunately, Wright and Solis are more than up to the task of playing opposite Magaro. Wright, in particular, gives Ella just enough maturity and innocence to make the father-daughter dynamic as emotionally rich as it possibly could be.
Despite the inherent tension and drama bubbling throughout the film, Robert Machoian’s screenplay is adept at diffusing it when the time is right. Shortly after the father yells at Ella not to stick her head out the window of the moving car, he’s trying to convince her and Charlie that he loves the taste of poop. The dynamic between the father and kids is impressively realistic. When the climactic moment finally arrives and the father’s motivations for this road trip are revealed, that authenticity knocks the wind out of your lungs. And Webley smartly keeps the camera on Magaro’s face, showing the painful aftermath.
Even when the characters are wandering around outside the car at a gas station or the zoo, the camera likes to be right in their faces. The claustrophobic cinematography serves to amplify the emotions rumbling beneath the surface of the family. Robert Machoian (who wrote and directed The Killing of Two Lovers) is no stranger to digging for buried emotions. He rarely makes the simple choice, using dialogue sparingly and honing in on the decisions the father is making. The lingering question as the end titles appear is whether the father has made the right ones.
If there’s one scene that felt like a weak link in the chain, it’s when the father has a cup of coffee after the film’s climax. He’s been driving for the better part of the past three days on very little sleep and has a reaction to the shop’s employee that, on the surface, makes sense, but lacks the authenticity present in the rest of the film. For a minute, Magaro’s performance feels somewhat forced and what should be a cathartic release lands flat.
Cole Webley shows a lot of talent and promise with Omaha. He clearly knows how to tell a story without compromising it, a feat that isn’t as prevalent as it should be. He’s also adept at working with his cast; John Magaro has given many great performances in his career and this one stands easily alongside them. The story’s opaque presentation is sure to work against its favor with some viewers, but will be rewarding to anyone who’s willing to engage with the characters.
Thank you to Route504 for the screener.
