Sundance review: 'Omaha' is a tense, claustrophobic drama of a family road trip, highlighted by actor John Magaro and two talented child actors

The success of director Cole Webley’s intense drama “Omaha” is due entirely to the tight ensemble of performers — three actors, two of them under the age of 10 — in the claustrophobic space of a dilapidated Toyota crossing the American West.

Webley and screenwriter Robert Machoian start with a father, played by John Magaro (“September 5”), carrying his sleeping 6-year-old son, Charlie (Wyatt Solis), to the car. Then he wakes his 9-year-old daughter, Ella (Molly Belle Wright), and tells her to join her brother. They’re taking a trip, Dad tells them, from their home in Nevada to Nebraska. (The bulk of the movie was filmed in Utah, and only locals would be able to notice.)

Dad tells the kids the trip will be a fun adventure. Ella notices the envelope Dad put in the glove box — containing the kids’ Social Security cards and birth certificates — and suspect the family is moving.

Webley and Machoian plant other clues for the audience, like the fact that a sheriff’s deputy approaches Dad just before they’re leaving, reminding him that the house has to be vacated today — or the hints that Ella and Charlie’s mom “got sick” and is no longer in the picture.

Why has Dad put the kids in the car? And why Nebraska? Those questions are eventually covered in Machoian’s spare script, but saying more now would deny viewers the opportunity to watch Magaro’s restrained performance as a working-class man slowly unraveling.

Part of the beauty of Magaro’s performance is that it works in perfect harmony with the young actors playing his children. Especially good is Wright (who starred in “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”), who carries the emotional weight of this road trip with a strength more experienced actors would have trouble mustering. Together, Magaro and these remarkable children make “Omaha” an intense and rewarding drama.

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‘Omaha’

★★★1/2

Screening in the U.S. Dramatic competition of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Screens again: Friday, January 24, 9:30 p.m., Redstone 1, Park City; Saturday, January 25, 9 p.m., Broadway 3, Salt Lake City; Thursday, January 30, 12:30 p.m., Redstone 1, Park City; Saturday, February 1, 10 a.m., Holiday 1, Park City. Online screenings Thursday, January 30, 8 a.m. to Sunday, February 2, 11:55 p.m. (All times Mountain time zone.) Not rated, but probably R for language and children in peril. Running time: 87 minutes.