SummaryFollowing the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road exploring a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad.
SummaryFollowing the economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada, Fern (Frances McDormand) packs her van and sets off on the road exploring a life outside of conventional society as a modern-day nomad.
Nomadland, with its beautiful simplicity, and wonderful performances, manages to be an elegant, profoundly moving film which shows the real value of living, rather than just surviving.
Fern’s need for constant movement, McDormand implies in a performance of extraordinary depth and ambiguity, is both a search for something and an escape from something else, and not even she seems completely sure what either something is.
Nomadland is, in some ways, a condemnation of a system that rewards decades of corporate loyalty with poverty and insecurity. But it’s also remarkably clear-eyed and honest about the pleasures and benefits of life on the road, its blend of documentary and fiction allowing those on the margins to tell their stories on their own terms.
But marrying this “Grapes of Wrath” saga to a “journey of self-discovery” narrative in this blend of restlessness and dogged, “no whining” desperation makes Nomadland an instant indie classic and one of the best films of 2020.
For all the majesty and naturalistic realism of its imagery, Nomadland is nevertheless full of sublime, uncanny details that lift it somewhat above the fray.
Nomadland, which is really more character study than surveying sociology, approaches Fern’s circumstances, and those of the people she encounters on her travels, with a fluid, un-judging sensitivity.
The two elements work against each other, each revealing the fault lines of the other: the fictional side remains bound to (and limited by) the most conventional and unquestioned observational mode of documentary filmmaking, while the documentary aspect strains against the simplifying framework of the drama in which it’s confined.
slow burn character study which I was amazed to learn has won about a million awards. Understated performance by Frances McDormand, though I found her character to be so self absorbed and unlikeable that I struggled to care what happened to her. To be honest the "plot" is so thin you could go for a two hour walk in the middle of the movie and not miss anything. Would have been better as a documentary.
Despite McDormand grear performance and Chloé's insight on elders life, there are some things I think I have somehow already seen before (not exactly the same, but at some extent) in films as The Straight Story or Into the Wild.
That is the only reason I don't find the film deserves so many 10 out 10 socre across the globe.
The theme is interesting: the sad reality of some people... but the movie is very boring. I have the feeling that nothing happened all movie, or at least the "story" could fit in 15 minutes.
I'm really surprised by this film's score here. I haven't felt as much let down by critics since Disney's Star Wars reboot.
The film is a jarring mixture between documentary and fiction. It's set in a part of the United States where poverty forces people into nomadism. This seems sad on the surface because it makes you work in unglamorous jobs and live in your car (that's probably the documentary part of the film?). But it's really the best thing ever (which is probably the fiction?). You constantly meet really great and warm people and form deep relations of mutual gratitude. Being a nomad you end up having to leave, but since they are also nomads you bump into them everywhere. Some of them are not so good at sounding profound, but it doesn't get worse than that, and they only try this maybe two or three times in the film. The hardest part in keeping up this lifestyle seems to be turning down the rich people who constantly offer to house you for free. Maybe this is a particularly privileged part of the US. That would explain why there are no black people to be seen anywhere.
This could still be a good fiction if it actually managed to bring the human stuff to life, but this did not work at all for me. In the least convincing scene of the film Fern suddenly becomes judgemental out of nowhere. The writers follow this up with a scene where Fern's sister praises here ability to "cut through **** Having served its purpose as an attempt of giving weight to the relation between the sisters, this aspect of Fern's personality promptly vanishes from the story. Also: is this an ad for Amazon?