It is always a welcome trip down memory lane when a former castmember comes back to host an episode of Saturday Night Live. This was Kristen Wiig's second hosting return to the SNL stage. Her first return was an emotional nostalgia moment for Wiig, who owes her entire career to SNL. This episode felt like she settled in a little more to her new role at 30 Rock.
Now that Donald Trump is the President-Elect, the SNL group has decided to be completely ruthless in its critique of the unconventional Commander in Chief. It seems Alec Baldwin is way too eager for his next opportunity to attack Trump through his spot-on impression. This Cold Open looks at the fact that Trump might be in a little over his head as he prepares to be president. Even Jason Sudeikis returns to reprise his Mitt Romney impression to show just how unprepared Trump is. The satire is very direct and pointed. It is definitely a sign of things to come.
In Kristen Wiig's second time around as host, she chooses to go the song route again. This time, it is actually pretty funny as she tells the story of Thanksgiving ... well, at least that is what she claims. Throw in a couple big cameos from Steve Martin and Will Forte, and the show is off to a great start.
As liberally biased SNL tends to be, the two sketches I picked as the best display the show's attempt to be equally offensive. First, you have a commercial making light of the liberal progressives that voted for Hillary that preach tolerance of everyone except for anyone that thinks differently than them. It is a beautiful commentary on pop culture and political correctness.
The second sketch attacks the spin cycle that is the national news media. Sometimes, it feels like the media just keeps saying the same thing over and over again. Well, that might be because they do. The twist at the end makes it all the more perfect.
When Jost and Che have something really good to rant about, they are so much fun to listen to. There were two visitors to the Update desk. First, you had the resident young person Pete Davidson on his reaction to the election. Next, if you need someone to make you feel better about your life, look no further than Michael Che's neighbor Willie.
It had been awhile since I could look at a sketch and say it was truly painful. This sketch was painful. Wiig and Cecily Strong play neighbors both auditioning for a show on QVC. It basically just turns out to be a shouting match between the two as they are both completely crazy. This is the type of sketch that usually keeps going until one of the cracks and starts laughing, but neither cracked the whole time. It was as if they knew it wasn't funny also.
One interesting thing about Kristen Wiig's hosting gig is she seemed to be opposed to reprising her former recurring characters. This sketch was one of only two that brought back an old favorite, and it was hilarious. It's a surprise homecoming, but Wiig's character is so excited and nervous she doesn't know if she can take it.
Grade
There were some truly funny parts of this episode, but there were also some real duds too. A nice thing about bringing back a former castmember is they can jump in and be just another player in the group. The problem with that is sometimes, that makes nothing special about the episode. That is what I felt happened this time. It was good, but not special. They tried with cameos and such, but it could have been much better.
We see the haggard old man with long
unkempt grey hair, walking briskly along the interstate highway outside of
Billings, Montana. He manages to look
simultaneously lost and headed toward an imaginary destination of only his
knowing – a familiar sight for anyone with exposure to the crippling effects of
Alzheimer’s. A cop sees him and pulls
over his car. He gets out and puts his
arm around the man: “Where you headed, buddy?”
The old man replies, “Nebraska,” but doesn’t seem to realize anyone’s
there. He keeps walking.
By the end of this movie, we will
know a great deal more about this man – his past, his family, and his motivations
for walking to Nebraska from Montana – and we may even have sympathy for
him. What’s most remarkable about
Alexander Payne’s Nebraska is that,
despite being the center of the whole movie, this old man, named Woodrow “Woody”
Grant, essentially remains a mystery. Who
is this man? What are the major
accomplishments and disappointments of his long life up to this point? What is he thinking about in those many
moments when he stares blankly into space?
Is he still “there,” so to speak?
Some scenes seem to indicate a man handicapped by the debilitating
effects of old age and memory loss; but other, more subtle moments show a man
who may be content to simply keep his mouth shut.
We never know the answers to these
questions definitively, and that is one of the many things that make Nebraska a great movie. As a filmmaker, Payne has specialized in
characters facing moral dilemmas that are forced to abandon their comfort zones
and find themselves while embarking on a journey. In Nebraska,
that character isn’t Woody Grant, who is too distant a character to really
demonstrate signs of moral maturation; instead, it is Woody’s youngest son, David,
who picks up his old man from the police station and looks on with incredulity
as Woody explains that he has a lottery ticket worth $1 million. Now all he has to do is claim his prize in
Lincoln, Nebraska (that should be the first red flag). David knows two things: First, that his
father is unable to drive and can only walk to Lincoln, and second, that no one else
in his family – including his mother, Kate (June Squibb), and his older brother, Ross (Bob Odenkirk) – will take
him. David’s moral dilemma: Driving his
father to Lincoln knowing full well that the lottery ticket is a sham and that his
senile father is pitifully incapable of recognizing this.
Thus, Nebraska becomes a road movie, but only in the ways that Sideways was a road movie. The story becomes little more than a platform
for smaller scenes and character exchanges which generate much more interest than
whether Woody’s lottery ticket turns out to be authentic or not. Woody and David stop at Mt. Rushmore. Then, Woody has to be taken to the hospital
with a bruise to the forehead. Then they
make an extended stop in Hawthorne, Nebraska, where we learn that Woody and his
wife grew up and started their family, until they relocated to Montana when
David was about five years old. They see
distant family members for the first time in ages. They drink.
Kate and Ross visit. The
residents of Hawthorne – most of whom seem to be around Woody’s age – begin to
believe that they are in the presence of a millionaire.
At the center of Nebraska are two remarkable performances
by Will Forte, as David, and Bruce Dern, as Woody. Both are worthy of Oscar consideration. Forte plays the straight man who is cast with
the unenviable task of taking care of his father – a lifetime drunkard with a
nagging habit of leaving the room and resuming his roadside trek toward Lincoln
– as well as informing enthusiastic family members that, no, sadly the lottery
ticket winnings are not real and no, they may not have any of the money for
themselves. Forte wisely avoids making
this character a perpetual sadsack (like Miles Raymond) but instead
an initially reluctant witness to his father’s shenanigans who realizes that,
in spite of his imperfections, his father may not be that bad after all.
Dern’s performance is a masterstroke
of subtlety and physical expression.
Woody hardly speaks in the film, and when he does, it usually comes in
the form of stock one-word responses. He
does not have any great extended speeches about his shortcomings as a father or
what he intends to do with the money. He’s
painfully honest, like many elderly people who may have thrown caution to the
wind by giving up any “filter” they may have once had (Kate is the same way,
and there is a wonderful moment in the film where she lifts her skirt for a
long-dead suitor). Much has been written
about the authenticity of Nebraska, which
is a euphemism for the prosaic appearances of its actors. The filmmakers have spared nothing in making
Dern look disheveled, hapless and weary to the core. That Woody commands the viewer’s attention in
each frame he is in is a testament to Dern’s nuances and complete embodiment of
the role. It is the best performance of
the actor’s 53-year acting career.
Many things happen in Nebraska – a great deal of them funny, some
of them bittersweet, all of them realistic and interesting. A good review need not spoil the details of
these scenes. However, it is worth
noting the careful way in which the screenplay, by Bob Nelson,contains many deep layers about who
Woody Grant really is, but this information is only gradually revealed to David
(and the viewer) by characters other than Woody. The effect is fascinating: We hear a lot
about Woody as though he is an omnipresent, offscreen character – not the
physical embodiment of the old man we see walking helplessly along the
highway. Is this the inevitable tragedy
of old age? Woody Grant’s cognizance is a
mystery, but even more of a mystery is whether even he knows who he once
was. Does he remain silent because of
memory loss, or because life’s too short to constantly revisit the wounds (as
well as the successes) of the past?
If the execution of Nebraska is commendable, than its conception
is all the more remarkable. How in the
world was Payne and his producing partners able to pitch this movie, with its
80-year-old protagonist set in one of America’s most unglamorous geographic
settings, not to mention being filmed completely in black-and-white and with no
A-list actors to speak of? Have you seen
the poster
for this movie? In this age of stringent
market conditions and streamlined test screenings, what audience did they hope
to find? After having seen Nebraska, I think the answer to that
question is clear – an audience with a (dare I say old-fashioned?) yearning for
sophisticated, yet economical storytelling with witty dialogue and compelling
characters (judging by the applause it received at Cannes
as well as the arthouse theater I attended, it’s safe to say such audiences
still exist). No explosions, no sex, no
CGI. Not so long ago, a movie like this
would find audiences through “word of mouth;” today, movies like this are set
aside by producers and audiences in favor of the latest Transformers sequel.
What Alexander Payne and his cast
and crew have done is made a movie that observes its characters deeply, powerfully
and above all truthfully. The ways in
which they have managed to make Nebraska equally
biting and warm-hearted can only draw comparisons to the wonderful ways Payne effortlessly
oscillated between the emotions of glee and sadness in Sideways. When I saw that
film in 2004, I left the theater moved nearly to tears – not because of its sadness,
but because of its profound truths about people and their interactions with
others. Nebraska leaves a wonderfully similar taste.
