★★★ (3 out of 4)
What starts as a family road trip across the American West ends in quiet devastation. In between, “Omaha” now in theaters, speaks movingly about ties that don’t always bind. John Magara, one of the best actors anywhere, stars as Dad—his name isn’t mentioned—who wakes up his kids early one morning and announces a surprise road trip. Screenwriter Robert Machoian and debuting feature director Cole Webley like withholding things, so get used to it. Extracting details is like pulling teeth.
“Pretend there’s a fire,” he tells his nine-year-old daughter Ella (a star-is-born Molly Belle Wright) and her younger brother Charlie (Wyatt Solis), while he hustles them into a rattletrap car—it always needs a push to start—along with golden retriever Rex. The mood is hardly festive—we see an eviction notice on the door as Dad drives away. Charlie looks excited in the back seat with Rex, but Ella—upfront with Dad—gets the feeling something is off. She’s right, about a lot of things.
We soon learn that mom has died of an unnamed illness and Dad, internalizing his grief, has lost his construction job, getting by on spare cash and food stamps. Still, Dad is determined to show the kids a good time, whatever it takes. They sing along to mom’s go-to party anthem, “Mony Mony” by Tommy James & The Shondells. And when they get to the Utah salt flats, Dad buys them a kite—he can only afford one—while he makes a few hurried calls.
The destination is Nebraska, Omaha to be specific, though Dad doesn’t tell them why. But the stress is readable all over Dad. Magaro tells us all we need to know of this man’s emotional fragility with just a look or gesture. Best known for “Past Lives,” “First Cow,” “Showing Up” and “September 5,” Magaro is a master of restraint whose resistance to shameless showing off has robbed him of the awards he deserves.
His talent, nonetheless, is off the charts, especially in his scenes with Wright, who gives Ella a maturity and grace beyond her tender years. Director Webley allows the family a carefree afternoon at the Omaha Zoo with the kids remembering for a brief moment to be the children they are with their father joining in.
‘Omaha’ means to shake you, and does.
The sadness that ensues starts when Dad stops at an animal shelter to give up Rex, no longer able to feed and house him. That scene wrecked me as will the rest of the film since it paints a portrait of homelessness all too tragically common in America the Beautiful. I won’t reveal what happens next for this family, only to advise you not to go as dark as thoughts of murder/suicide, though such situations have occurred.
Hope is broken but not lost as “Omaha” comes to its shattering final destination. Some may find the film’s conclusion manipulative. And it sometimes is. But this is a film that tells its story, not with statistics that are plentiful, but with the bruised humanity written on the faces of an American family under siege from a distribution of wealth it never signed on for. “Omaha” means to shake you, and does.