‘Omaha’: Sundance Review

Dir. Cole Webley. US. 2025. 82mins

So unassuming and low-key it almost drives by un-remarked, like the drone of the highway traffic that punctuates its soundtrack, Cole Webley’s feature debut Omaha packs a powerful soft punch. Premiering at Sundance (US Dramatic Competition), and clocking in at a brief 82 minutes, it presents as a small American road-trip indie, complete with a strumming guitar soundtrack, two small children and a Golden Retriever in the back of a battered old car with a harassed, broke and broken father at the wheel. Omaha is a mystery, but the heartbreak of poverty will never be solved in its land of the free.

Packs a powerful soft punch

Critics will rally to Omaha, which premieres on the first day of Sundance, and it should secure a small, sweet sale. It’s precisely the type of indie that struggles in the open marketplace even as it wins the hearts of those who will need to be encouraged to watch it on the big screen. It also announces Webley and his DoP Paul Meyers as significant talents to watch – not to mention its cast, particularly the young Molly Belle Wright and the weathered John Maguro, as her dad.

The screenplay by Robert Machoian (who also directs, including The Killing Of Two Lovers) is deceptively accomplished: even though it’s compact, 82 minutes is a long time to withhold as many answers as Omaha. The film starts with Dad (Maguro), shaking six-year-old Charlie (Wyatt Solis) awake and bringing him to the car in the pale, post-dawn light. Nine year-old Ella (Wright), asleep in a different house, joins him, along with Rex, a photogenic canine whose panting head gives some scale as to how small these children really are. Charlie is oblivious, but Ella is wary, attentive: she knows that something is up.

There are small clues dotted around, of course. When Dad asks Ella to take her most precious things, she selects a photo of her mum and her Nintendo DS. The first indicates this is not child abduction or alienation; the second dates the timeframe. Likewise the repossession notice on the house where Ella was sleeping, seemingly alone; or the fact that Dad has taken their identity papers and nothing else. They’re driving to Omaha, but even that information comes late, and isn’t explained.

What we’re left with is lives sliced from context and put into simple relief. Everyone has to play their part: the kids act their little hearts out, Ella worried and watchful, Charlie gleefully thieving dollar trucks his father can’t afford from various rest-stops along the way. DoP Meyers is charged with capturing the bare-bones highway and turning it into an adventure. He seizes the salt flats and, later, a zoo, delivering beauty without taking over. Sound design cuts from interior to exterior as a motif, reinforcing the insularity of the car but also a sense of time and destination. The only off-key is a soundtrack which struggles to distinguish itself from countless scores of this kind.

All the way through, Dad is almost mute: with stress and, often, barely-controlled grief. We can sense his desperation, but not the scale of it. Maguro, never allowed to explain his character, does a terrific job with internalised anguish, keeping it in check so it’s a presence in the car but not one which prevents him demonstrating his love for his kids, over and over again, in whatever way he can.

The question of why they are going to Omaha is a plot spoiler which is certain to become public but doesn’t really have a place in a review. It comes in the very last frames of the film and is a sucker punch for those who aren’t already aware of the certain set of circumstances Omaha is operating in. Most importantly, though, it begs for forgiveness and understanding, then and now. It’s a plea Omaha makes more eloquently than you might have imagined, going into a road movie with two cute kids, a dog and a guitar-based soundtrack.