It’s so low-key and observational that you worry all the hype will work against people’s expectations. I hope not. Nomadland, officially a 2020 release for awards purposes, is, yes, I’ll say it, one of the year’s very best films. On my personal list, it’s moved just ahead of Promising Young Woman for the number one spot.
Her husband having died and the factory that employed her shut down, Fern (Frances McDormand) stows what belongings she has in one of those soulless storage units, and hits the open road with her well-worn van as her sole home and transportation. “I’m not homeless, I’m just houseless,” she says.
Fern finds herself in a rolling community of folks in the same houseless existence – people traveling from place to place for seasonal work; cleaning toilets at campgrounds or fulfilling orders in an Amazon warehouse – whatever they need to do to eat, gas up, and move on.
Everything about the film feels real and, it turns out, there’s an explanation behind that. Most of the cast are real, modern day nomads-many were the subject of the non-fiction book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by journalist Jessica Bruder, and play quasi-fictionalized versions of themselves in this film.
Linda May, for instance, is a senior citizen who is about the best friend you could have in these circumstances- she knows all the ins and outs, the tricks, the hacks, the tips of life in a van. It’s a good thing that May is playing herself here because you couldn’t cast an actor of any caliber who could match the naturalistic performances that she and others from the book have brought to the screen. David Strathairn, one of the few “real” actors, has always had a naturalistic vibe – he is perfectly cast.
And at the center of it all – quiet and still, is Frances McDormand in a performance that lacks any showboatiness typically required for the major awards. I have heard it said that the real essence of acting is listening and McDormand spends a lot of time doing just that; she listens to these people share their backstories, and it’s a fascinating variety of tales. It’s the kind of acting where you cannot see any acting taking place. Which is the point, right?
Remember the name Chloé Zhao , who wrote, directed, and edited. If she doesn’t win Best Director from the DGA and a host of other organizations, then something is terribly wrong. But she’ll win.
The photography is jaw-dropping. Big, wide open spaces in the American West, notably the Badlands of South Dakota, but there are others. It’s settings like these that make you realize it’s not all about surviving tragedy for these nomads – in fact, for some it is a lifestyle choice. They love seeing those big mountains on the horizon and a sky full of stars at night. You can’t blame them. But we should be careful not to romanticize things too much – it is a hard life
So, my hope is that viewers will see this film without the hype that reviews like this have conferred upon it. Nomadland didn’t ask to be the best. It just worked out that way.
