On the road to Omaha: a sensitive and heartbreaking road trip (review)
John Magaro composes a father on the brink with a heartbreaking truth in this beautiful debut film about fatherhood in times of crisis
From the first shot of On the Road to Omaha, the whole fragility of America’s losers hits us in the face. A father wakes up his children at dawn. He throws the necessary clothes into an improvised suitcase and rushes into an old car. Destination ? Unknown. From there, Cole Webley films their road trip like a headlong escape where each gas station, each seedy motel becomes the scene of an intimate drama against the backdrop of an economic crisis. John Magaro composes a father on the verge of the abyss with a moving truth. His defeated face, his desperate tenderness for his daughter Ella (fantastic Molly Belle Wright) and little Charlie are reminiscent of the great films about losers. We navigate halfway between Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy and Lucy and the raw humanism of The Rider.
And the story advances in a subtle way: we guess before understanding, we sense the tragedy without ever sinking into misery… The same goes for the photo, whose harsh beauty seems almost documentary. It is in this refusal of pathos that the film finds its true strength: moments of grace rub shoulders with the dull anguish of the predicted catastrophe. In 83 minutes, On the Road to Omaha stands out as a beautiful film about fatherhood in times of crisis – sensitive, heartbreaking, and of rare emotional accuracy.
