Nomadland: an elegant portrayal of itinerant living that glosses over economic injustice

The following article contains spoilers.

Fabian Robertson reviews.

Fern (Frances McDormand) defecates in buckets, works seasonal gigs, and lives in her van. Her life is not one of glamour, but it is one of beauty. She drives wherever she wants, immerses herself in nature, and makes deep human connections that are purified by the sheer simplicity of her lifestyle.  

Fern is a nomad - one of many who hit the road after being abruptly woken from their ever-so-fragile American Dream. Her hometown Empire was uprooted by the closure of the gypsum mine that sustained it. She lost her job, her husband died, and Empire’s zip code was discontinued.

Despite all this, director Chloé Zhao fixates on the tranquillity of Fern’s new lifestyle. The film regularly situates Fern and her companions in vast panoramas of spectacular, untouched wilderness. This is contrasted by scenes of incredible closeness, where the hand-held camera zeroes in on quiet moments of emotion and camaraderie. A side character in one such scene talks about her friend, who died of liver failure 10 days after retirement, having never taken his sailboat out of his driveway.

“I didn’t want my sailboat to be in the driveway when I died,” she says.

Rare moments like these are amplified in the context of the film’s deliberately slow and meandering plot. Their understated and piercingly authentic execution consequently achieves a level of gravitas that would otherwise be unattainable. Moments like a simple goodbye between Fern and her friend, an anecdote about kayaking with swallows, and a shared cigarette between strangers are incredibly moving.

Nomadland’s emotion is also deeply accentuated by Ludovico Einaudi’s spectacular score, which he composed while hiking in the Italian Alps. Like everything else in the film, Zhao weaves in the score sparingly and with great effect.

McDormand herself is a filmic element woven into her surroundings. Like Zhao’s previous film The Rider, most of the supporting characters are not actors but real-life nomads. Bob Wells, Linda May and Charlene Swankie (who was, in my opinion, robbed of a Supporting Actress nomination) all play themselves, adding to the film’s authenticity.

Wells joins McDormand for the defining scene of Nomadland. As Fern reflects on her husband’s death, Wells shares the unscripted and heartbreaking true story of his son’s suicide. Yet he has found peace on the road.

“I can look down the road and be certain in my heart that I will see my son again,” he says.

Zhao succeeds emphatically in producing a touching depiction of itinerant living. In the process, however, she largely neglects the tragic economic injustices at the core of the film’s subject matter. This is a departure from the Jessica Bruder novel from which the film is adapted.

The first sentence of Bruder’s novel sets the tone: “The capitalists don't want anyone living off their economic grid.” She calls the deepening class divide a “de facto caste system” and repeatedly censures the economic inequality that forces retirement-age Americans to live in their vans.

Zhao inadvertently glosses over this underlying truth. She portrays Fern and Linda happily working in an Amazon factory for “good pay”. In the novel, the real-life Linda implies that Amazon is the “biggest slave-owner in the world”. Bruder describes their work in the following extract: “Most had traveled hundreds of miles—and undergone the routine indignities of criminal background checks and pee-in-a-cup drug tests—for the chance to earn $11.50 per hour.”

In the film, Dave (David Strathairn) has emergency surgery. Despite having no obvious access to healthcare due to his intermittent employment in seasonal gigs, the process is swift and without complication. There is no indication of the inhumanity that underpins the American healthcare system.  

Clearly, Zhao is uninterested in condemning the capitalist structures that ensnare her protagonists. In her quest to document the beautiful freedom of nomadic life, Zhao’s direction is largely passive to the economic injustice that writhes beneath the surface.

Nomadland is therefore a mirage of sorts - a visually aesthetic experience that does nothing to thwart the desert of wealth inequality that it emerges from.

8/10          

Oscar Nominations:

Best Picture

Best Director

Best Actress in a Leading Role

Best Cinematography

Best Adapted Screenplay

Best Film Editing

Oscar Snubs:

Best Actress in a Supporting Role: Charlene Swankie

Predictions:

Best Picture

Best Director

Best Cinematography