In a brief career that has brought both popular success and critical acclaim, director Alexander Payne has laid claim to a kind of distinctly American filmmaking—a strain that has not been seen, perhaps, since the 1940s, when Preston Sturges trained his keen eye and sharp wit onto the manners and mores of small-town America. Payne applies his own brand of absurdist humor and progressive politics as he places contemporary heartland values under a comically incisive and critical lens.