These days, it's rare that I leave a movie screening with my face hurting from having smiled throughout its entire running time. And it might surprise you that the film in question is Nebraska, Alexander Payne's return to the kind of caustic humor that pervaded his earlier movies like Citizen Ruth. Indeed, it's not that Nebraska is either particularly acrid or funny in the way that, say, Payne's Election was. The reason I smiled throughout is because Nebraska is that rare movie which feels like it is speaking directly to me, not condescending or talking up to me from a level of idiocy. From the moment the black-and-white film begins, with its familiar but now retired Paramount logo of the 1970s, I felt like I was going to be well taken care of for the next two hours.
