Omaha

Bluesky

There were several small but resonant dramas at Sundance this year and Cole Webley’s debut is the encapsulation of the concept. Scripted by Robert Machoian - who previously wrote and directed the equally observant family drama The Killing Of Two Lovers - it takes us on a difficult road trip across the US with a grieving dad (John Magaro), his young daughter Ella (Molly Belle Wright), even younger son Charlie (Wyatt Solis) and smiling soul of a golden retriever Rex.

The reasons for the trip are revealed late in the film but it’s obvious from the outset that they can’t be good. Dad wakes the kids early, asking Ella to pick her favourite things, before bundling them into their ageing family car, which then needs to be push-started, an eviction notice evident on the door they are leaving behind.

Dad frames this as a sort of adventure, but his anxiety - especially around money, which often lingers in the frame - is unmistakable. Magaro, who proved so warm in support in 2023’s Past Lives, again shows the same sort of emotionally accessible everyman quality that Tom Hanks has made a calling card. Americana - particularly that of the American West - is also a character here, notable in the landscape of salt flats and open roads the family are crossing.

The car becomes a microcosm of home, with the sound design adding to the sense of it being cut off from the external world, as we move between the two. As the gas station stop-offs mount, the journey becomes fuelled by the children’s energy and perspective. There’s the joy of the pair of them scampering over the salt flats trying to hoist a kite aloft - shot with a sense of freedom by Paul Meyers - but the intimacy of the car also clues us in to Ella’s rising stress level as she, in turn, increasingly tunes in to her father’s emotions. The tension between awareness and the innocence of childhood increases as the trip goes on, with Wright’s watchful performance dovetailing perfectly with Magaro’s.

There may be a rumbling of trouble in the background, but Machoian and Webley capture the way that this doesn’t impinge on the feeling of joy that can come in a moment, whether it’s laughter over a game of “Would you rather?” or a shared ice cream. We know some sort of end of the road is coming and when it arrives our world starts to collapse in on itself too amid a sensation that when a parent says, “It’s for the best”, it rarely is. Non-judgmental and resonant, hope may be in short supply, but while there’s love this deep, it still glimmers.