Desperation can get dark…

Omaha is one of those quietly devastating films that shows how narrows the roads we walk down in life can get sometimes and how it cannot take much to get there….

After a family tragedy, siblings Ella and Charlie are unexpectedly woken up by their dad and taken on a journey across the country, experiencing a world they’ve never seen before. As their adventure unfolds, Ella begins to understand that things might not be what they seem.

While it avoids the easy tropes of overt exposition Omaha is the kind of film that is the equivalent of a slow moving car wreck; you know something devastatingly horrible is coming, but you are so compelled by it that you just can’t look away and that’s a testament to all involved.

In his feature debut, director Cole Webley working from the script by Robert Machoian has crafted something devastatingly simple that actually has respects for its characters and the horrible nature of the situation they are and allows us to organically evolve with them.  Nothing that happens is really anyone’s fault but they all have to suffer because of it.

Webley and Machoian basically draw a straight line with the narrative, which is exactly what it needed to be.  No deviations, no twists or turns it takes us from A to B, but its magic is in the reality that it displays.  The exposition is minimal; rather it all comes through the faces of our two leads that do a masterful job and taking us through a moment of quiet despair from two different perspectives.  One who is knee deep in it and one who is slowly realizing the horrors of her situation.

John Magaro who you’ll recognize from films like Past Lives is simply haunting here as a man in over his head in the wake of a tragedy drifting towards a conclusion that nobody wants but he thinks he can’t avoid.  His performance here is a proof positive example that acting is about more than the lines of the page, it’s about understanding those unspoken truths in a situation and he conveys them to us while we watch him barely say a word.  Sure it’s early, but it’s one of the performances of the year.

Opposite him as his daughter, young Molly Bell Wright delivers a surprisingly nuanced performance as his daughter who’s emotionally aware of the upheaval in her life but is only slowly realizing the levels of crisis that her father and subsequently what she knows as her family are facing.  She makes a great scene partner for Magaro as they both carry the film with heart breakingly effective aplomb.

What the ultimately the most heartbreaking part of Omaha truly is (while still avoiding spoilers) is that this heartbreaking story of desperation is based on stories that have ACTUALLY happened.  This film draws you in with its humanity while simultaneously enraging you that we live in such a world that actually allows all this stuff to happen in the first place.

Omaha is the first indie gem of the year and I implore you to seek it out.