Omaha

When a film struggles to prematurely avoid playing spoiler, it can be quite an arduous task for a filmmaker to pull off successfully. Fortunately, there are times when directors achieve this accomplishment brilliantly. At the same time, however, there are occasions when keeping a lid on important revelations can be so challenging that a film ends up becoming cryptic or needlessly enigmatic, leaving viewers feeling like they’ve been unduly strung along. And that’s one outcome to which filmmaker Cole Webley comes perilously close to fulfilling in his otherwise-engrossing debut feature. In…

Because of **AFTERSUN**, I thought I was more than prepared to watch a film about a struggling, single father *in extremis*. I could not have been more wrong. In his feature film directorial debut, director Cole Webley’s **OMAHA**, written by Robert Machoian, is a slow and bittersweet story told on the road, as a single father—played with tremendous emotional restraint and nuance by John Magaro of **PAST LIVES**—walks out of his home with his two young children, their dog, and sets off on a seemingly spontaneous road trip to Nebraska. His children include 10-year-old Ella (Molly Belle…