By Matthew Moorcroft

Strong Recommendation

• Directed by Cole Webley
• Starring John Magaro, Molly Belle Wright, Wyatt Solis, Talia Balsam
• Not Rated

With a slow, almost unsure beginning, Omaha is a film that leaves it’s viewer at a distance almost immediately. This is on purpose, clearly by design from a newcomer filmmaker with something to prove. It takes it’s time getting going, just like the car that our core trio are driving throughout much of the picture, and once it is going it’s a little slow, rusty, but it gets the job done until the inevitable breakdown and pitstops suddenly make you question whether or not the destination is even in sight.

John Magaro is a father here, going unnamed. A very, very stressed one, dealing with a family shaken by the clear loss of a mother and the foreclosure of a house leaving them homeless. His kids don’t know this, though the oldest – a perceptive Ella, played wonderfully by Molly Belle Wright, a genuine discovery of a talent – has some vague idea about some of the details. She at least understands her dad is stressed out and that they have to move, though her dad is keeping a lot of stuff close to the chest. The younger brother, Charlie, is mostly oblivious and likely still too young to get what is going on. As their dad leads them on this road trip, it’s clear something is up the entire time and the audience is mostly left on the side of the kids, unsure about what exactly is going on or why the dad is deciding to make the decisions he is.

It’s a risky bet narratively, but at least for Omaha it mostly pays off. The lead up to this is clearly indebted to the work of people like Sean Baker, especially with it’s focus on lower class America and mostly unknown cast outside of Magaro. There is even a little bit of Aftersun sprinkled in there, especially in how the young daughter is the clear narrative focus of the feature and her perspective is key to understanding the core of the work. Gorgeously shot to boot thanks warm, rich cinematography and phenomenal location work, Omaha is also thankfully well made to the point where it’s easy to get emotionally swept up in it’s slightly manufactured nature.

But unlike, most journeys, which are about the nature of the journey itself rather then the destination, Omaha is certainly very much about said destination, as the rug is pulled out from underneath the viewer almost as quickly as it is for the kids. It’s telegraphed a little bit for patient viewers who are paying attention, but I suspect for most it will come as a genuine punch to the gut that’s hard to shake off. The last 10 minutes of Omaha are emotionally crippling, completely in service to a final text card that finally gives some societal context to the film that reframes the narrative. It’s possible Omaha actually would work better on a repeat viewing, with many more of it’s nuances and ideas coming across without having to be filtered through the eyes of a child.

Honestly the trio of lead performances are so good that they anchor the whole thing, as it’s likely the film would have fallen apart if it wasn’t for them. Both Magaro and Wright are uniformly excellent here, and as we’ve seen before it’s difficult to get believable performances from actors as young as Wyatt Solis but he’s also very believable and fantastic here. They feel like a real familial unit, warts and all, and Wright’s final scene in particular is so strong that it sticks in your mind long after the end of the film.

And that’s ultimately the goal of any film, isn’t it? To get you to think about it long after the credits have rolled, letting you immerse yourself in that world for only just a little bit of time. Omaha, while it’s certainly replaying the hits from other Sundance style flicks or even the work of other directors who have covered similar ground, is playing the hits well enough that it does succeed in that, and ultimately is worth your time regardless. A good, even great, entry into the “sad family” pantheon of films that seems to be getting more and more common nowadays.