Nomadland
Director: Chloé Zhao
Starring: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Lots of Nomads
Genre: Middling West
In the pulpit, megaphone and polarised world we live in, my expectations of Nomadland were for a left-wing, anti-capitalist, America-bashing, supposed history lesson on the cause and effect of the GFC on elderly Americans and in-your-face parallels with Trumpian America. How wrong I was.
Nomadland is actually a gentle story about one woman’s lifestyle, partly thrust upon her by economic circumstances and partly chosen. Fern (Frances McDormand) started travelling across America in her van from seasonal job to job after her husband died and the town they lived in shutdown after the mine it was established on closed. She is part of a literal and real movement of a nomadic American community. There are some political elements and figureheads, and some formal structure and support networks, but essentially each participant chooses their own journey.
Frances McDormand again perfectly embodies small town America (think Fargo [1996] and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri [2017]) in a way no other actor can, and for this reason she’ll get an Oscar this year (as opposed to next year, which is why the film was rushed out for a two-week showing prior to a general release later this year).
The film is part-documentary and part-fiction. Nearly all the nomads play themselves, are unscripted and speak from the heart. Even McDormand lived in the van for four-months and worked some of the seasonal jobs.
Nomadland is more about Fern’s journey of self than America’s decline as she faces a choice of the nomad life versus a possible ticket to domestic serenity and tedious stability. America’s recent choices are just as personal.
Rating: Four-and-a-half navel gazes
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