Cannes winner Bruce Dern's “Nebraska” unveils new trailer (video)

 September 18, 2013 - 11:07 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The first full-length trailer for Alexander Payne's Nebraska has debuted, previewing an endearing father-son road trip story through America's heartland, The Hollywood Reporter said.

Bruce Dern stars as a cantankerous father, who, after receiving a sweepstakes letter in the mail, drags his son (Will Forte) into a journey to pick up his supposed winnings. Along the way, they run into family and friends who are hungry for a piece of the million-dollar pie.

Payne's black-and-white film, which had its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, where Dern won the award for best actor, will be released by Paramount in a limited run on Nov. 15, which will qualify it for awards contention.

“Dern is simply marvelous in a role the director reportedly first offered to Gene Hackman, but which is all the richer for being played by someone who was never as big of a star. Looking suitably disheveled and sometimes dazed, he conveys the full measure of a man who has fallen short of his own expectations, resisting the temptation to overplay, letting his wonderfully weathered face course with subtle shades of sorrow, self-loathing and indignation.

Given the less innately attention-getting role (a la Tom Cruise in “Rain Man”), Forte does similarly nuanced work, his scenes with Dern resonating with the major and minor grievances that lie unresolved between parents and children. Had Payne not already used it, “The Descendants” would have been an equally apt title here, so acute is the film’s sense of the virtues and vices passed down from one generation to the next,” film critic Scott Foundas said in a review published at Variety.

Also starring June Squibb and Breaking Bad's Bob Odenkirk, Nebraska was written by Bob Nelson and produced by Bona Fide Productions' Albert Berger and Ron Yerxa.