John Magaro in ‘Omaha’: The Sundance Film Leaving Audiences in Tears

PARK CITY, Utah—Omaha is a small, delicate film marked by few momentous narrative incidents. Yet Cole Webley’s directorial debut has something lacking from so many higher-profile and bigger-budgeted efforts, including its compatriots at this year’s Sundance Film Festival: an authentic feel for the texture, atmosphere, and interior life of its everyday American landscapes and the people who travel through, and struggle to inhabit, them.

A road-trip saga initiated by a father who won’t explain the purpose of the impromptu journey to his two children, it’s a model of tone, concision, and emotional and psychological insight, led by a staggering performance from John Magara and an equally moving one from pint-sized co-star Molly Belle Wright.

Though it doesn’t overtly announce its time and place, a John McCain presidential campaign sign, a reference to a Nintendo DS, and a briefly glimpsed license plate indicate that Omaha is initially set in Nevada circa 2008. In the dead of morning, Martin (Magaro) lifts his young son Charlie (Wyatt Solls) out of bed and relocates him to their beat-up hatchback’s back seat before going to wake the boy’s older 9-year-old sister Ella (Wright).

Martin’s refusal to answer Ella’s questions about where they’re going is a clue about the ominous nature of their upcoming excursion, as is the widower’s command that she grab whatever is most valuable to her (as if the house were burning and she had seconds to snatch them) and join her sibling in the vehicle with their dog Rex. On their way out, a sheriff arrives, and while Ella doesn’t fully comprehend their tense conversation, the cop’s subsequent posting of a notice on their front door makes clear that the family is fleeing eviction.

Their flight, however, is relatively slow, since their car is on its last legs, requiring Martin and Ella to open their front doors and push the vehicle until it gains enough momentum, at which point they leap back inside and try to start the engine. This is another hint about their destitute condition, although it’s also an early glimpse at their bedrock bond.

As they hit the pavement, director Webley’s close-ups of his characters’ faces impart a mountain of information about their personalities, their fear, and their despair, with Wright’s visage a tableau of anxiety and dread—both as it relates to herself and her dad—and Magaro’s countenance radiating a wellspring of palpable, if mysterious, agony and despair. It’s not apparent what’s precisely taken place (save for the death of their matriarch), but it’s obviously quite dire.

Whether it’s a swing set at dawn, train tracks and chain link fences in the midday sun, or a two-lane road cutting through the plains at dusk, Webley’s pastoral snapshots capture the spirit of this dusty, semi-barren region. Set to a plaintive acoustic guitar-heavy score by Christopher Bear, Omaha is attuned to the rhythms and sounds of this milieu and the desperation of those that call it home. Martin is certainly one of those individuals, and the frequent sight of him covering his face with his hands, or running his fingers over his closely cropped hair, suggest the escalating urgency of his predicament, as does the forlorn and terrified look in his eyes.

Magaro’s dad may not say much, but Ella (unlike her oblivious, rambunctious younger brother) can sense that something is wrong. Stopping for a bite to eat at a fast-food restaurant with a jungle gym play area, Ella chides her father for feeding Rex human food, and then attempts to take it back when he makes a shocking, terrible decision—a moment that plays out in heartbreaking reaction shots of Ella and Charlie.

With graceful precision, Webley wrings big-time poignancy from seemingly small moments: Charlie dancing crazily at a gas station to an approaching car’s music; Ella teaching Charlie how to fly a kite on the salt flats as Martin sits, despondent, behind the wheel; Martin madly pushing his kids on a shopping cart through a grocery store; and Ella staring, with love, hurt, and alarm, at her father as he’s told that his food stamps card won’t cover the cost of his items, and he responds by choosing not to buy food for himself.

Omaha is about the destruction wrought by poverty, but Webley never preaches; rather, he simply allows his tale to underscore how economic hardship begets shame, grief, regret, and drastic, cataclysmic dilemmas. When Martin makes Ella’s wish come true by taking her and Charlie to the Omaha zoo, the process of buying tickets is fraught with tension. That anxiety wanes during their ensuing day amongst the animals together, peaking with a stroll inside a butterfly sanctuary that epitomizes the beautiful fragility of their situation. Still, it never fully dissipates. This is a clan on the edge of an abyss, teetering precariously and with few around to steady them should they lose their balance.

The director showers his protagonists with compassion and understanding, letting their actions speak for themselves, and he elicits sterling turns from Magaro and Wright, who express more wordlessly than they do via conversations with each other. Just as Robert Machoian’s script doles out details in offhand comments, the film’s two leads do a lot with a little. As a father driven to a scary extreme by a variety of compounding circumstances, Magaro has never been better, and he’s ably matched by Wright, who as the innocent, wary, and adoring Ella, gives one of the finest child performances in years.

At only 83 minutes, Omaha boasts not a pound of fat on its frame, and if its climax comes to feel inevitable before it arrives, that doesn’t neuter the affecting force of its impact. In a text coda, the film reveals that it’s inspired by actual events that took place in Nebraska during this period.

It’s Webley’s stewardship, however, that truly carries the day. Neither overplaying his melodrama nor indulging in showy formal flourishes, he pays tribute to his tale’s rural environs and captures the many tangled ways in which money (or lack thereof) impacts individuals, families, and communities. It’s a model of efficient, evocative storytelling, illustrating that being compact doesn’t preclude a movie from overflowing with great, expansive life.