Oscar Frontrunner Nomadland

Nomadland is a sprawling, introspective drama from up-and-coming auteur Chloé Zhao who single-handedly directed, edited, and wrote the film based on Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction book of the same name. Frances McDormand stars as the film’s heroine Fern, a former resident of Empire, Nevada where her factory went out of business during the Great Recession. She decides to take to the road in a white van, aptly nicknamed Vanguard, and embraces the nomad lifestyle, quickly discovering its diverse and thriving subculture of proud itinerant Americans. “Houseless, not homeless,” Fern says.

One might expect Nomadland to sink its teeth deep into social criticism regarding the economic upheaval and rising inequality that ensued in the wake of the Great Recession and helped give rise to these vagabond lifestyles, but Zhao’s tone is never preachy or didactic. She is far more interested in creating a rich work of art with greater thematic significance and subtlety than a simple social critique. Instead, Zhao shrewdly veers away from social criticism and nimbly navigates the more practical and intimate aspects of nomadic life and the personal qualities of its practitioners—perseverance, fellowship, and frugality.

Other than McDormand and David Strathairn who plays Dave, the film’s cast is made up entirely of real-life nomads portraying versions of themselves. McDormand’s Fern beautifully blends into this amateur ensemble, which blurs the lines between documentary and fiction. Zhao perfectly captures the transient nature of nomad life. The bonds Fern forges are always fleeting—whether it is her relationships with Linda, Swankie, or Dave—her relationships are deeply felt, but always fading in time. Her seasonal job at Amazon or custodial work at an RV park is good and honest, but always temporary. This gives way to the film’s loose, episodic structure which surprisingly, never falters. 

Nomadland’s nuance is evident in audience interpretations of the main character Fern. Some may envy her freedom, pity her situation, or feel sorry for her, but Zhao is not keen on judging or even romanticizing Fern’s nomadic life or American bootstrap mentality. Nomadland is, after all, a quintessentially American film. “What the nomads are doing is not that different than what the pioneers did,” Fern’s sister Dolly says. “I think Fern’s part of an American tradition.”

But perhaps Nomadland’s main prophecy is that there is “no final goodbye.” There’s always a chance the nomads will see one another later on “down the road.” At times, Nomadland veers close to being overly sentimental and sanitized or even static, but much like the film’s characters, it packs up and moves on rather quickly. Nomadland is a uniquely observant film, a rare oddity nowadays.

9/10