NOMADLAND and the Search for Meaning

A major achievement by writer/director Chloé Zhao with a thoroughly arresting performance by Frances McDormand, Nomadland is an affecting film that leaves a strong, emotional response.

Beginning in 2011 in Nevada and traversing the Midwest, a middle aged woman, Fern, leads a solitary existence living in her camper like others who follow this nomadic way of life.  It’s a life of struggle and getting by with meager resources. Her world consists of bonding with those she meets along the way while taking whatever menial jobs are available and staying at various camps and lots where she can.  Her cross country travels become a physical and contemplative venture in search of meaning and her own truths.

Unfolding in a series of episodic vignettes (like a Terrence Malick narrative), the film explores the world of transients living off the grid. Each has a story and reason for being in this circumstance.  Many are victims of a poor economy; some have suffered the loss of a loved one. Comparable to the Depression era dustbowl, it’s a whole subculture community where there are no heroes or villains but rather survivors helping one another and hoping for a better future.  

McDormand is completely authentic as Fern, a proud woman, searching for her identity, who reconnects with her past as she takes stock of an open ended life and whose personal journey becomes our journey, though one filled with pain and regret. David Strathairn lends strong support as a fellow traveler, but the predominantly unknown cast contributes to the film’s realism.

With its moody score and beautifully shot, unfiltered landscape, the film’s power is in its honesty and deceptive simplicity.  It’s really about the small moments that add up to create texture for this film, one of the year’s best.   

**** of **** stars (on Hulu)