Nomadland is Deeply Moving

 

NOMADLAND (2020)

Directed by Chloé Zhao

Searchlight Pictures, 108 minutes, R (brief nudity, mild language)

★★★★★

 

 

 

Nomadland manages to be two seemingly incompatible things: a love letter to America and a middle digit amidst its amber waves. It may not win much come Oscar time—it is decidedly not usual Hollywood fare—but it has already carried off a fistful of prizes in every critics’ circle and film festival that have thus far weighed in.

 

Nomadland is cinéma vérité with a twist; much of the film is a pure documentary that is unmediated by director Chloé Zhao. We meet a lot of colorful and interesting people, most of them from the walks of life in which they actually stride. Or, perhaps, drive would be a better word. It is about real-life nomads, those individuals who, as Fern (Frances McDormand) puts it, are not homeless but houseless. They live in vans and follow both jobs and bliss. In essence, they are migrant workers.

 

McDormand doesn’t just play a nomad, she inhabits the role to the extent that she can’t even sleep in an actual bed. She is on the road because her husband has died and, though she’s tough as nails, she’s grieving. There’s also the fact that her town has gone out of business-—literally. She and her late husband Bo lived in Empire, Nevada. When the housing industry cratered in 2008, the demand for drywall dropped and U.S. Gypsum closed the entire company town. Imagine a scenario in which the place you lived, worked, loved, and socialized for decades becomes a ghost town overnight.

 

Even nomads need community and here is where the film becomes a masterful slice of cinéma vérité. We are taken to the Arizona desert where we encounter Bob Wills, who operates an actual network for nomads. Wills is equal parts motivational speaker, swap meet coordinator, support service facilitator, anti-corporation evangelist, and bear-like shoulder to lean on. Fern also befriends the grandmotherly Linda May and late-in-life Swankie, a lover of rocks and all things natural. They are both mavericks addicted to freedom of the swim-against-conformity variety. The burly 75-year-old Swankie speaks of being resigned to dying because of the wonders she has seen.

 

Life on the road sounds romantic, but the flip side is something Wills rails against: the nomads are poor. They work hard, mostly in jobs most of us never see. We observe Fern on the frenetically paced floor of an Amazon warehouse, shoveling mountains of beets in Nebraska, cleaning filthy bathrooms in South Dakota, and performing other menial tasks. McDormand is 63 now and we see etched on her weathered face both grit and weariness. Another friend, David (David Strathairn), is also aging—he’s 72 in life—and pathos abounds when we see him in a soda jerker paper hat flipping burgers. Linda May speaks of having worked since she was 12, but finding she was eligible for a mere $550/month in Social Security benefits. In other words,  these nomads are not the Wally Byam Club.

 

In The Things They Carried, author Tim O’Brien’s namesake tale is about what soldiers chose to heft in their field packs. Muse upon your possessions. If you lived in an Amazon-sized van, what would you actually need and what else would you try to find room to take? For sure you’d need warm sleeping gear, a cook stove, pans, clothing for all seasons, water jugs, and a large plastic bucket into which to do your business. You’d probably pack other things that you’d find you didn’t need and swap them at one of Bob’s desert gatherings. (They are akin to Burning Man for the non-moneyed set.)

 

Chloé Zhao’s light directorial touch hits the target better than an arsenal of big production movies. Usually there is no musical soundtrack beyond occasional mood-setting transitions. When needed, Ludovico Einaudi provides gorgeous and deeply moving filler. Joshua James Richards’ cinematography is equally evocative. He allows the camera to dwell upon the vastness of the West, the sweep of an empty road, the otherworldly jaggedness of the Badlands, the glowing beauty of a desert sunset, the sheer majesty of tall, snow-covered peaks, and the absurdity of human-built “attractions.”

 

And let us again praise the fearless Frances McDormand. She has already won two Academy Awards and it would be a major injustice if she doesn’t win a third this year. She is indeed fearless. There are very few actresses with the moxie to appear as unglamorous as she, to float naked in a mountain creek, to sport unkempt hair, and wear nothing more elegant than a cheap loose shift and sandals. Were it up to me, this movie would sweep the Oscars. Nomadland is a stunning film that will both exhilarate and make you hug your Kleenex box. Call it down but not yet out in America.

 

Rob Weir  

 

Postscript: Some critics have compared the nomads to Dust Bowl refugees. I disagree. The latter had no choice whereas most of the first I find more analogous to the Roma.