Nomadland (2020)
dir. Chloé Zhao
Rated: R
image: ©2020 Searchlight Pictures
Director Chloé Zhao’s inspired blurring of truth and fiction in her newest film Nomadland reveals an emotional truth about the American spirit that is more profound than even the most probing documentary could capture. Her movie, in its own quiet way, celebrates the beauty and grandeur of American western landscapes and the human desire to drink them in, much like Sean Penn’s Into the Wild. It also documents, like a modern-day Grapes of Wrath, the crushing poverty that forced these beauty-seekers on the road in the first place. It’s the blending of these two aesthetics that make Nomadland such a delicate treasure.
The film, which Zhao produced, wrote, edited, and directed, is based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century. The book tracks several older Americans – a few of whom are featured in the movie – devastated by the 2008 financial crisis. Unable to find permanent work and without the financial means to afford stable housing, they hit the road in their campers, RVs, and vans in search of temporary work. They are modern-day nomads, working sporadically at whatever odd jobs they can find, like the Christmas holiday rush at an Amazon distribution center, or as camp hosts outside of national parks and forests in the summer.
Like her 2017 film The Rider, Zhao blends fact and fiction to produce something new. In that earlier film, Zhao asked a real-life rising rodeo star, who was sidelined after a brain injury, to play a fictionalized version of himself. Nomadland’s core is built around a wholly fictional character and a lead performance by a professional actor. Oscar winner Frances McDormand purchased the movie rights to Nomadland and, after seeing The Rider, asked Zhao to adapt and direct it.
McDormand plays Fern, a woman who has lost everything after the recent death of her husband and the disbanding of her town. The opening text of the picture, about the real town where Fern lived, gives us a sense of the devastation that the Great Recession caused:
“On January 31, 2011, due to a reduced demand for sheetrock, US Gypsum shut down its plant in Empire, Nevada, after 88 years. By July, the Empire zip code, 89405, was discontinued.”
Fern lives out of her van, which she has built out in order to make as comfortable and practical as possible. Convinced by Linda, an Amazon co-worker, Fern travels to the Arizona dessert when the Amazon temporary work dries up. Together, Linda and Fern attend a sort of nomadic lifestyle convention organized by Bob Wells, a nomad lifestyle guru. There she learns survival techniques for people living out of vehicles and on very fixed budgets.
It’s somewhat amazing to me that Amazon allowed their logo and (seemingly) their facility to be used in the movie at all. I’m sure someone at the company saw it as a good P.R. move, since, from a very privileged perspective, Amazon can pat itself on the back for providing some form of income to these temporary workers.
They would never cop to the fact that their pioneering of gig-economy style jobs – paying subsistence-level wages, not to employees, but to part-time “independent contractors,” which subsequently means they don’t have to offer health insurance or any other meaningful benefits – is a major contributing factor to the economic precarity of their workers’ lives.
One could see Nomadland’s silence on addressing this issue directly as a weakness. The film never explicitly examines the systemic causes for why finding meaningful, rewarding, good paying work has become so difficult in America. But Zhao’s neorealist approach and focus on character ends up being more emotionally powerful than any polemic, like, for example, the snide and self-righteous The Big Short, which, if you’ll remember, did not amuse me.
Zhao is more interested in creating a portrait of these people on the margins of society that is full of empathy and compassion. She incorporates the people who are featured in the book – all non-professional actors – and allows them the space to show us their lives.
Fern’s co-worker, Linda, is one. Another woman, Swankie, who fits the mold of a cantankerous grandmother – loving but never shy about scolding when appropriate – tells Fern about her cancer diagnosis. She has resolved not to die in a hospital bed, but to see as much of the country as she can before time runs out. The cancer story is probably fictional, but Swankie delivers it with such honesty that we don’t really know for sure.
That’s the beauty of using these non-professional actors. Whatever we lose in the limitations of people who don’t act for a living is made up for in the raw truth of expressing their lived experiences. Bob Wells, the organizer of the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous that Fern attends early in the film, is a real-life advocate and philosopher of the van-dweller ethos. As he says in Nomadland, he sees it as his mission to help and support people who find themselves in this lifestyle, whether by design or circumstance. Late in the movie, Wells relates a moving story about his son; again, we don’t know if it’s a true story, but Wells’s unassuming demeanor gives it the weight of emotional truth.
Nomadland further complicates things by making Fern a character who chafes at a conventional lifestyle. She is offered stability from both her sister and Dave, a fellow nomad who is sweet on her, but the thought of being tied down keeps her on the move.
Fern is a career-defining role for Frances McDormand, and that’s saying something when you consider McDormand’s other indelible performances, like the iconic Marge Gunderson from Fargo. Her Fern lives by her own rules, but the movie takes care to make the point that even though that’s true, Fern and others like her are deserving of respect and a decent living. McDormand’s performance is a quiet one, but it’s full of dignity and strength.
Veteran character actor David Strathairn complements McDormand wonderfully as Dave, the sometimes bumbling, always sweet fellow traveler of the road. In a fleeting moment, we get insight into Dave when he describes to Fern his failures as a father. Zhao, with the help of McDormand and Strathairn, make these characters fully formed people; they are complicated and messy and they resemble people you might run into on the road, like many of the real-life nomads that the movie features.
Cinematographer Joshua James Richards gives Zhao’s preoccupation with the landscapes of the American west a stunning beauty. Richards did the same for Zhao in The Rider. His magic-hour sunsets of purples and reds are breathtaking. Composer Ludovico Einaudi’s haunting piano-centric score adds a mournfulness to this tail of people forever on the road.
Chloé Zhao is a sensitive, humanist filmmaker who pulled all of these elements together to make an emotionally moving examination of wanderlust and the American spirit. Her movie is a quiet triumph, the best of last year.
Why it got 4.5 stars:
- Nomadland is, from the cinematography, to the story, to the characters, a beautiful film. Chloé Zhao is an emotionally perceptive filmmaker, and she’s made the best movie of 2020.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- “I’m not homeless, I’m just houseless,” sums up the indominable spirit of Fern. McDormand plays her as someone who has no need for pity.
- The everyday, off-the-rack clothes that McDormand wears is one simple way to spot just how fake everything in a traditional Hollywood movie is.
- There is a line in Nomadland that, I’m pretty sure, winks at the audience regarding the kind of movies Zhao makes. In one scene, Dave tries to get Fern on the dance floor at a local bar. When Fern is hesitant, Dave reassures her by telling her not to worry, “There are no professionals here.”
- While I’m on the topic of being self-referential, the song Tumbling Tumbleweeds turns up in the background of one scene in Nomadland. It’s a song that features predominantly in the opening of Frances McDormand’s husband’s movie, The Big Lebowski. There is also one shot that features a movie theater marquee sign advertising Marvel’s The Avengers, which makes sense, given Nomadland’s time-period setting of 2011 and 2012. Zhao is the director of the upcoming 2021 Marvel release, Eternals.
- There is one shot of majestic redwood trees at the very end of the film that is awe-inspiring. I hope to see redwoods in person some day.
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
I watched Nomadland via an awards consideration screener disc. It’s now available, with a subscription, on the Hulu streaming service.