Omaha review: A tremendous John Magaro drives this wrenching family drama | Hollywood


One of the joys of covering the Sundance Film Festival is watching a great feature film made by debut director. The festival has been a launchpad for some of the most important voices of this generation, on either sides of the screen. It is when a film instantly transports you and makes you believe the characters’ circumstances. Omaha, directed by Cole Webley, is one of those films. Premiering at the US Dramatic Competition section, it is a story that does not hide its destination, still it is the journey with these characters that matters the most. (Also read: Plainclothes review: Tom Blyth gives a breakout performance in gritty cop drama)

Omaha marks Cole Webley’s feature directorial debut.

The premise

Actor John Magaro finally gets to show his scope as a leading man after carving rich supporting turns in Past Lives, September 5 and First Cow. Here, he plays a dad, whose name we will come to know later. When Omaha opens in the early hours of a cosy house in 2008, Magaro’s dad requests his daughter Ella (Molly Belle Wright) and son Charlie (Wyatt Solis) to wake up. Ella insists they could take their mother’s picture- and we realize she passed away from an illness a while ago. The other companion on this trip is their adorable golden retriever Rex. I hate when movies treat their pets horribly but thankfully Omaha finds a solution, which although heartbreaking, will make sense later.

Ella is aware that there’s more to this trip, and more to her dad’s silence than he shares. Still, she tags along happily, and Webley paints the film’s single most beautiful sequence- the siblings flying a kite after dad takes a break from driving. These are moments which make Omaha so achingly beautiful even though the film does take a predictable turn.

This is a slow-burn drama, aided with a lush score by Christopher Bear and cinematographer Paul Meyers’ keen eye for juxtaposing the closed space of the car with the unwinding highway landscape. For a film that chooses to stay, as patiently, alongside this family, it withholds a little too much for its own good. Perhaps that is the reason why the film’s shattering conclusion feels so inert and cold.

Final thoughts

Omaha often reminded me of Aftersun, and the way both films place fatherhood and grief at cross ends. John Magaro is immensely watchable here as the man slowly crumbling down with grief. “I’m just tired,” he says when Ella catches him still awake, sitting in the hotel washroom. But the film’s emotional core is debutant actor Molly Belle Wright’s turn as Ella. The child actor gives a performance of haunting sensitivity and intelligence, most of it in the way Ella’s apprehensions begins to take hold as the journey leads to Nebraska.

Omaha never sensationalizes the pain and suffering of these characters. It is a film that is probably a little too closed-off, a little too stubborn in its own narrative subtleties. One wonders why the director chose to close the film with a sudden burst of information, when it could have certainly worked better if dispersed in the runtime. Still, stay with dad and Ella and Charlie, and take this trip with them. Trust when they say, ‘It’s for the best.’ Probably, that’s everything they can ask for.

Santanu Das is covering Sundance Film Festival 2025 as part of the accredited press.

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