Omaha

When Cole Webley’s Omaha opens, it doesn’t waste time on pleasantries or explanations. Instead, we are pulled straight into a moment of rupture: John Magaro’s unnamed father wakes his children, Molly Belle Wright’s Ella and Wyatt Solis’s Charlie, before the sun rises, asking them what they would take if their house caught fire. It’s a cruelly poetic way of framing what is already happening—they are being evicted, the sheriff is at the door, and the family has no choice but to pack a few essentials and hit the road. The father sells it as an adventure, but his children, especially Ella, already sense the truth. The trip to Nebraska is not a vacation but a last resort, a desperate journey into uncertainty.

From its first moments, Omaha makes clear that it is not a conventional road movie. The film operates in half-spoken truths and stolen glances, where emotion lies as much in what is withheld as in what is revealed. Robert Machoian’s script refuses melodrama, offering instead a restrained, minimalist structure that lets silences weigh as heavily as words. It’s a choice that elevates the performances, and none more than John Magaro, who once again confirms why he has become one of the most compelling actors of his generation. His father is gaunt with grief, battered by the 2008 economic collapse, and hollowed out by the recent loss of his wife. Yet John Magaro conveys this burden not with dramatic outbursts but with the quiet fatigue in his eyes, the subtle tightening of his jaw, or the way he forces a smile at his children while his own despair festers beneath.

The children, however, are the soul of the film. Molly Belle Wright’s Ella is astonishing, her gaze oscillating between childish hope and adult awareness. There are moments where she is still a carefree nine-year-old, dancing at a gas station or running with a kite across the salt flats, but she also carries the maturity of someone who already understands her father’s fragility. Wyatt Solis, as Charlie, provides levity with his innocence, pilfering toy cars from roadside stops and filling the silences with play. Yet his presence also deepens the tragedy—he is too young to grasp the gravity of their situation, which leaves Ella to shoulder the invisible role of caretaker long before her childhood should end.

The film is punctuated with small, devastating details that linger long after the credits. A home-burned CD with the mother’s voice on it becomes both a comfort and a wound. A trip to the zoo, bought with money the family cannot spare, is bathed in fleeting joy but carries the weight of impending loss. And in perhaps the film’s most heartbreaking moment, the father drops their beloved dog at a shelter, with Ella sprinting after the car in disbelief. These choices, as painful as they are to watch, never feel manipulative. They flow naturally from the character’s circumstances, reminding us how poverty and grief combine to strip people of options until they are forced to sacrifice what they love most.

Visually, Omaha finds beauty in the overlooked landscapes of America. Paul Meyers’ cinematography turns desolate gas stations, motel pools, and empty highways into spaces of melancholy lyricism. A scene of Ella and Charlie flying a kite against the dull blue sky and yellowed grass may not look like much in a painting, but on screen it becomes a fleeting image of innocence—a child’s joy captured before reality intrudes. These moments are heightened by Christopher Bear’s subtle score, which never overwhelms the story but instead breathes with it, underscoring both the weight of silence and the rare bursts of laughter.

By the time the family reaches Nebraska, the audience understands the father’s decision even before it is revealed. The closing text about the state’s Safe Haven laws reframes the entire journey, grounding it in a painful reality that few viewers may have known about. Some critics have debated whether the title card was necessary, but its bluntness is part of the film’s power: it insists that this story is not just an isolated tragedy but one lived by many families failed by economic and social systems. In this sense, Omaha is not just a road trip drama but a political act of witness, an indictment delivered with compassion rather than polemic.

It is also, crucially, a showcase for performance. John Magaro gives what may well be the defining role of his career, one that places him alongside the quiet intensity of actors like Paul Mescal in Aftersun. Molly Belle Wright is nothing short of revelatory, carrying the film’s emotional arc with a maturity far beyond her years. And Wyatt Solis, while asked to embody innocence rather than awareness, provides the film with its much-needed bursts of levity and warmth. Together, they create a family that feels utterly real, their dynamic so natural that even their silences speak volumes.

Omaha is not an easy watch, but it is a necessary one. It is a reminder of how quickly lives can unravel, how grief and financial collapse can converge to leave people stranded, and how children too often carry the weight of decisions they never asked for. Yet it is also a film about love—messy, desperate, self-sacrificing love that persists even in the face of impossible choices. Cole Webley’s debut is unflinching but never cruel, compassionate without sentimentality, and devastating in its quiet truths. It lingers like a memory you wish you could forget, and that is exactly why it matters.

Omaha
Directed by Cole Webley
Written by Robert Machoian
Produced by Preston Lee
Starring  John Magaro, Molly Belle Wright, Wyatt Solis
Cinematography : Paul Meyers
Edited by Jai Shukla
Music by Christopher Bear
Production companies : Sanctuary Content, Kaleidoscope Pictures, Monarch Content
Distributed by Greenwich Entertainment
Release date : January 23, 2025 (Sundance)
Running time : 83 minutes

Seen September 6 2025 at the Deauville International Center

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