Having Lost Everything, a Woman Finds a New Life on the Road

Frances McDormand in "Nomadland"
Photo Credit: RottenTomatoes.com

Over the last few years, Chloé Zhao has become a filmmaker who champions the exploration of people and regions in the American Midwest.  Her 2015 debut feature, “Songs My Brothers Taught Me,” focused on a Native American brother and sister living on a reservation in South Dakota, and her 2017 film, “The Rider,” took her back to South Dakota and told the story of a Native American rodeo star on the rise.  In these films, Zhao showed the tremendous detail in both the places themselves and the citizens who inhabit those communities, carrying us into the daily lives of the characters and offering a richness of authenticity.

Zhao goes back to the Midwest for her new film, “Nomadland,” where she finds another story to tell in which she takes us on the road.  Here, she not only has us marvel at the beauty and freedom to roam that America’s vast landscapes have to offer, but to invite us into a lifestyle that’s rarely seen on film, all in a narrative that’s based on a stunning true story.

In 2011, Fern (Frances McDormand) loses her job at the US Gypsum plant in Empire, Nevada, where she worked with her husband, who has since passed away.  Without anything to keep her back, she decides to travel through the Midwest in her van and start life anew as a nomad.

McDormand provides a deep, meditative performance of someone who’s trying to make it on her own in the wide-open terrain of the country.  While McDormand shows the sense of freedom that her character experiences, there’s also the melancholiness of losing what she has loved.  McDormand exhibits someone who’s both in the moment, but carries the beloved memories of the life that she had before.  She presents her character’s bravery of restarting her life out in the country, meeting new people, embracing new landscapes, and facing some unforgiving elements as she discovers a part of herself that she never knew was there.

Besides McDormand, the only other established actor in the cast is David Strathairn, who portrays David, one of the nomads whom Fern befriends.  Similar to Zhao’s previous two films, she uses a cast that’s comprised mostly of nonprofessional actors.  This use of non-professional actors brings to life the reality of the situations that she depicts.  In this film, she uses real-life nomads Linda May, Swankie, and Bob Wells, who all help Fern get the hang of their customs.  There’s a genuineness to their performances as they bring their van-dwelling experiences on screen, and they’re each given a chance to provide some depth to their characters as they explain to Fern what the nomadic lifestyle means to them.

The screenplay by Zhao, which is based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 book, “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century,” doesn’t use a lot of set-up into Fern’s time transitioning into a van dweller, which isn’t bad thing.  Instead, we meet her just as she’s ready to start traveling the roads, which allows for her journey to begin unfolding right away.  As Fern ventures from place to place, we’re offered a life-affirming view into the nomads who embrace a lifestyle that many would find difficult to pursue, but we see how great of a sense of community that they have and the abundance of care that they display for their fellow nomads.  This is a story about the nomads every bit as much as it is about Fern, and in between us becoming familiar with the lives of the nomads, we’re given insight into Fern’s life and are provided with details little by little that give us an idea of who she was before the events of the movie.

The cinematography by Joshua James Richards, who collaborated with Zhao on her other two films, once again captures the splendor or the Midwest.  The expansiveness of the surroundings is something that can fill Fern’s heart, and the way in which he absorbs us in the great outdoors helps create something that’s emotional, spiritual, and liberating.  A memorable sequence is a tracking shot of Fern walking through her first nomad camp as the sun sets in the background, creating a gorgeous dusk as we’re introduced deeper into the world of the nomads.

One of the most remarkable aspects of the movie is how a foreign director is able to show America with such lucidity.  Zhao, who was born in China, sees America with as clear of a view as she exemplified in her previous two films.  Just like “Songs My Brothers Taught Me” and “The Rider,” “Nomadland” is another contemplative story that provides the viewer with the opportunity for an eye-opening and emotional examination of the lives that Zhao follows through her cinematic, almost-documentarian eye.  She provides a tone that’s both elegiac in the life that Fern once lived, and celebratory in the new life that she builds.

Like all great road movies, “Nomadland” shows you that once you’ve traveled down one road, there are plenty of others on which to venture and reinvent yourself.

Grade: A