'Nomadland' is based on journalist Jessica Bruder's 2017 book 'Nomadland: Surviving America in the 21st Century.' Adapted for the screen and directed by Chinese born filmmaker Chloé Zhao, it won the Golden Globe for both best drama and best director and is generally considered the front runner in the best picture and directing categories going into this years Oscars. The film is a window into the world of a van dwelling sub culture, principally of older people, who in the aftermath of the Great Recession travel a sort of circuit throughout the Untied States looking for seasonal work.
Our lead character is Fern, she is portrayed in an admirably restrained performance by the great Francis McDormand, who I think is even better here then she was in her Oscar winning role in 'Three Billboards' a couple years back. Fern worked various jobs including substitute teacher, cashier, and office work in Empire, Nevada before the local Gypsum mines closed up in 2011 essentially killing the town. With no children and her husband dead Fern embarks on a nomad life that takes her from working at an Amazon warehouse during the holiday season, to work at RV parks near national parks during the peak travel season, and sugar beet harvesting in Nebraska in the fall.
The film this movie reminded me of the most is probably 'Into the Wild' which also featured a lead character on a journey across America encountering various intriguing characters along the way. 'Nomadland' has a less episodic feeling then the previous film because Fern will repeatedly reencounter characters following a similar circuit to hers, chief among them is a potential romantic interest in the form of David Strathairn, who is immediately taken with her but whom Fern takes some time to warm to.
Inherently melancholy by virtue of its subject matter there is still some sense of hope here, or if not hope exactly a kind of reconciliation with the seemingly arbitrary in life. Valuable as a portrait of a way of life in a rather specific time and space, it's a beautifully low key film and certainly one of last years best. ****
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