USA – Drama – Year: 2013 – Running time: 115 mins
Audience feedback: Rating: 
(4.75 / 5 from 36 votes)
‘Excellent’: 29 votes- ‘Very good’: 6 votes
- ‘Good’: 0 votes
- ‘Satisfactory’: 1 vote
- ‘Poor’: 0 votes
Bruce Dern is in fine form in this critically acclaimed bittersweet road movie. A son accompanies his booze-addled father on a journey to claim a million-dollar sweepstake prize. But they get waylaid in a small town in Nebraska where the father grew up and has scores to settle. Told with deadpan humour and unique visual style, lingering on the landscapes and fabric of an old-time, dying vision of the American Midwest, its essence is the story of a son trying to relate to a father he doesn’t understand.
[Payne has] made an “American Gothic” for 21st-century, post-recession America. Who needs a pitchfork anyway, when you can have an ice cold bottle of Bud?
Ann Hornaday, Washington Post
Director: Alexander Payne
The Descendents (2011) / Sideways (2004) / About Schmidt (2002)
Film notes (Mark Miller)
Audience feedback
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Further reading:
Guardian Film (Mark Kermode)
The Independent (Geoffrey MacNab)
Theatrical Trailer: