Watching “Nomadland,” the stunning ode to self-reliance and purposeful isolation, you can’t help but be amazed by the film’s lyrical beauty even as you experience waves of undeniable sadness mixed with the sense that you’re witnessing your future in the most prescient way possible.
It’s also fitting that writer-director Chloé Zhao and star Frances McDormand should be safe bets to win their first and third Academy Awards, respectively, based on this monumental achievement.
Nomadland
4 out of 5 stars
Now in theaters and streaming on Hulu
McDormand is everywoman Fern, the embodiment of the American experience in the uncertain, unstable aughts that served in hindsight as a dire warning bell for the shitshow of the past few years.
After losing her husband to illness and her longtime job to the Great Recession, Fern is forced to shift her focus and priorities as she takes to the open road as a nomadic wanderer, living out of her repurposed van.
Fern works when she needs to, laboring at Amazon warehouses and tourist-y welcome centers to make enough cash in the short-term to provide enough relief to bridge the divide. She caravans with a few familiar faces along the way, and briefly sets up with a tribal community of aging boomers who have lived off the grid for years.
Credit to Zhao for using real people, and not professional actors, to play these roles because, as a viewer, you feel the truth of their experience that much more simply by studying their sun-kissed, wind-swept faces as they share their own personal stories.
“Nomadland” is not a traditional Hollywood narrative. There’s no inherent drama, no manufactured crisis, no end destination, no noticeable character arcs. “Nomadland” is exactly what it is, which is a testament to survival and ingenuity, which is perfectly fitting for the radically different world we now inhabit.
The way life used to be wasn’t easy, but the experience of living since the financial free fall 14 years ago is considerably more difficult. We as a society are learning first-hand what our foremothers and forefathers from the 1930s encountered, that sense of uncertainty when gripped with fear, the struggle to summon perseverance, to call forth resolve when hope seems lost. It’s a part of our history we shouldn’t be surprised to see repeating, even in our advanced technological age.
Humans, as a whole, are more connected today than ever before, yet also more disconnected too. Far too many people only know about the outside world, and how to survive in it, by watching YouTube videos. “Nomadland” serves as a poignant reminder that no matter our age, we can still adapt if we truly make the effort.
McDormand is revelatory, and not just because she seems like the only choice to play a character like Fern. She conveys more emotion with her eyes, her pursed lips and her body language while sitting alone in a cramped cargo compartment than most actors can summon on their best day, surrounded by all the trappings of a multi-million-dollar production.
Zhao also is revelatory, especially when you consider that “Nomadland” is just her third feature-length film since 2015. It also makes sense watching how she balances the human elements while still allowing the natural world to dominate nearly every frame of “Nomadland” why Marvel Studios decided to take a huge risk on a relatively unknown talent to helm their next big tentpole franchise, “Eternals,” which likely won’t debut until 2022 due to COVID-19.
This isn’t a light-hearted happy movie, the kind of film you watch again and again, but it’s an incredibly important roadmap for what life might become, and how we can carve out a place in it, that couldn’t have arrived at a better time.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him on Facebook @BloodViolenceBabes or on Twitter @BVB_reviews.
