Review: Nomadland (2021)
Directed by Chloé Zhao; screenplay by Chloé Zhao, based on ‘Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century’ by Jessica Bruder; starring Frances McDormand, Linda May, David Strathairn.
4/5
I’ve heard plenty of talk about Nomadland as a bit of a lacklustre examination of modern-day poverty in America and I have to say I disagree with the underlying premise of this sentiment. The impoverished lifestyles featured within are just a fact of life and that aspect of things is left entirely unresolved, in the sense that no equality is ever gained nor are the systems responsible ever really examined, for the very reason that it’s just not about that at its core. Nomadland isn’t an examination of poverty – it’s a rather brilliantly poetic meditation on grief and the human inability to really let things go.
When we meet Fern (Frances McDormand, for which she quite rightly earned the Oscar for Best Actress) at the beginning of the film, she’s collecting up all of her things and packing them into her small van named ‘Vanguard.’ After a large factory central to the local economy finally closed its doors, Fern’s hometown of Empire withered away – forcing many of its inhabitants out, along with Fern. For a brief beat, she lingers to smell an old jacket, taking in the memories attached to it, those of her deceased husband. It becomes immediately apparent that everything in that van is all that Fern has left and all that she holds dear. All of her painful memories, all of her cherished ones too, the things she’s unwilling to completely let go – for better or worse. What follows is a year spent on the road with Fern as she floats from one seasonal job to another, one relationship to another, accruing new life but refusing to fully let it into her little Vanguard.
One criticism I can see being levied against the film (aside from the misplaced critique of its socioeconomic underpinnings) is that its rather explosive pace doesn’t really figure with the poetic little film it’s trying to be. It’s hard to really sense it at first, but it is there. Underneath the quietude and peace, Fern’s navigation of a whole year takes just under two hours and Zhao refuses to linger on any one moment for too long. I must admit I somewhat agreed with this criticism at first (and perhaps is now why I’m addressing it.) This is actually one of the films the screenplay (written by Zhao but based on the book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century by Jessica Bruder) of which I buckled down and read during the Oscars season and even back then, I found it to be quite strangely economic. With this being said, I’ve come to realise that this pace in actuality really works in harmony with what the film seems to be trying to say. We’re never quite allowed to linger, and we’re never quite allowed to see the full development of Fern’s relationships because neither does Fern, she doesn’t want to. Just as I mentioned above, Fern carries her baggage with her, and doesn’t intend on picking up any more along her road.
Now I feel I must gush about the cast. It’s only right. Frances McDormand as the repressed but care-free Fern is a smart piece of casting. Fern’s aversion to lingering in any one place is etched into McDormand’s tired looks and knowing glances. In one scene, she takes a tour of the Badlands National Park with her best friend Linda May (played by a real nomad of the same name – more on this), and is guided about by Dave (David Strathairn) who seems entirely interested in pursuing Fern with a kind of clumsy romance. As Dave gives his spiel to the rest of the visitors, Fern slips away, dancing into the maze-like rocky dunes. She doesn’t really know where she’s going, and ultimately gets lost and must be found by Dave, but she seems to prefer it that way.
Curiously Zhao does also quite heavily rely non-professional actors, but the effect actually works very well. Just as the neorealists used them in Italy, and yet many more an indie filmmaker does across the world, the professionals seem to create the foundation upon which the non-professionals can build. Swankie, another non-professional aside from the fabulously charismatic Linda May, breathes life into her role as a curmudgeonly nomad with terminal cancer. Her experience on the road lends her lines and her actions a real authenticity. So much so that her scolding of Fern for not having a spare tire after one blows out feels like the real woman scolding the interloper for not quite taking things seriously enough (although it’s more than likely McDormand did.) “You can die out here, you out in the wilderness.” It’s easy to see how the sometimes jagged reading of lines could have been a detriment to the overall work, but I have to say it just isn’t. It really elevates it. The non-professionals actually seem to highlight the fictionalised identity of the film whilst not really detracting from the overall story. Their brief scenes feel like little invitations to go away and do a bit more digging, rather than pretending that the film is entirely authentic.
‘But did it deserve Best Picture?’ I hear you asking. Maybe? Probably? It’s tricky with a film like this. It’s a rather universal picture because of its fairly general approach to things like the context within which it sits. Fern and many of the other Nomads are living in the wake of the Great Recession but it’s rare that anything is really said about it, it’s just sort of background radiation. I think there’s probably only a single scene in which Zhao appears to be saying anything in particular and that’s the one in which Fern lambasts an in-law about his complicity in the systems that rendered her “without a home” as she describes.
And this latter self-portrait Fern paints is an example of the rest of the film’s noncommittal universality. Frequently Fern refuses the label of homeless but it’s quite clear she’s nowhere near bringing in enough capital to buy anything permanent again. It’s most likely her pride and sense of dignity coming into play, but fundamentally it feels like Fern’s amorphous identity as a nomad is emblematic of the film’s non-answer to the question of whether or not it is ultimately a kind of tragedy. I think I like that about it, though, and I think maybe that’s what those Academy voters and all those other critics do too. It doesn’t feel like Zhao’s judging anyone for the choices they make here (aside from those diabolical housing marketeers.) Fern’s problems aren’t magically solved and the methods she was using to cope with them that it felt like she might grow out of by the end remain. But she’s working on it and quite possibly, if we meet her down the road she’ll be different, or maybe not.
Watched on 4th April 2021