NOMADLAND

Winner of the Venice Film Festival 2020 Golden Lion award, written/directed/edited by Chloé Zhao starring Frances McDormand who optioned the rights to the 2017 non-fiction book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century” by Jessica Bruder. McDormand attended TIFF 2017 where she saw Zhao’s “The Rider” and knew this filmmaker would be the right collaborator to turn Bruder’s book into a narrative feature while retaining a documentary quality, as certain characters are the actual people from the book.

The story begins with the audience being told the sheetrock mining town of Empire, Nevada all but disappeared in 2011 when the factory shut down.  We meet Fern (McDormand) a former inhabitant of Empire. She’s now living in her van. She’s a fairly recent widow who’s heading to do seasonal work for Amazon. The company will pay for camping spots for their workers to live nearby the Amazon warehouse.  It’s obvious all these scenes are completely authentic, especially Fern’s co-workers, particularly, Linda May who’s featured in Bruder’s book.  

Nomadland starts off rather depressing.  In fact, if it weren’t under Oscar consideration, I would have stopped watching it.  This of course, is a pitfall of now streaming films rather than seeing them in the theater, where I think perhaps twice in my life I’ve thought of walking out.  I am glad I stuck with this film as Fern’s journey of “homelessness” or as she puts it, “I’m not homeless, I’m just without a house”, becomes less depressing and more heartfelt; full of wonderfully shot desert landscapes and shadowy images of Fern’s van living existence.  But mainly, it’s about the people she meets along the way, those that are natural wanderers who now in their golden years can take advantage of their freedom from a job to explore; and those young and restless, not ready to settle down into what it takes to achieve the American Dream; and those displaced, looking for a sense of community in these empty lots and desert RV campgrounds.

What captures the mood most, is Fern’s quiet determination to stay independent.  She’s a likable person and makes friends wherever she goes, even a romance. She gets offers for a place to stay, but you can tell this new lifestyle, although, not easy at all, is something she needs to do at this juncture in her life.

T&T @largeassmovieblogs rating: 4 outta 5