Fern has survived many extinctions: the ghost town she once called home, any sense of normalcy before 2008’s economic collapse, her means of livelihood, her house, her husband.
Faced with the impossibility of moving on, she decides instead to move forward — physically, unflappably forward. Fern is a nomad. Nomadland is her story.
Yes, Chloé Zhao’s latest film is a story about Fern (Frances McDormand), but even more so about countless others. This is a story about those who, by choice or circumstance, no longer belong to the America they once did. Pushed to the fringes of a nation that plays cruel favorites, these drifters have carved out a deliberately migratory existence. Here, on the road, life welcomes a different lens. Economic prosperity is a needless currency. The American dollar forfeits its tyranny. The American dream, and all its failings, melt quietly into the mountains.
None of that much matters to Fern, though. Her vandwelling bears no specific mission statement. She has nothing to prove, and little left to lose.
Zhao is the first woman of color to win the Golden Globe for directing. After watching the film, it isn’t difficult to see why. Echoes of today’s woes ring out in Nomadland. Though set a decade ago, the film offers a rich well of insight into contemporary social and economic asymmetries.
Nomadland, though subdued and largely unadorned, operates on multiple levels. Primarily, it’s a refined study of McDormand’s character, who carries sorrow with her in ways that are not always apparent, who bears grief, but is not defined by it.
After the loss of her husband and their shared home, Fern embarks on a roving quest around the American West. When we meet her, she’s in the midst of seasonal work at an Amazon factory. She sleeps in her van, and tends to it lovingly. On New Year’s Eve, she warms up some food and, though alone and shivering, celebrates the holiday in the ways she can. Pensively adjusting her “Happy New Year’s” headband, she contemplates her next destination without steady work.
Those early sequences possess ambivalent melancholy. It’s hard not to feel sad for Fern, though she doesn’t appear to feel sorry for herself. She certainly doesn’t want anyone’s pity, correcting those who might mistakenly deem her as “homeless.” Each night while she stares at her van’s ceiling, curtains closed to whatever parking lot lies outside, we wonder what might be simmering behind her watery blue eyes: Nostalgia? Regret? Contentment? Peace?
Zhao’s approach to Fern is magical because those answers are not readily apparent. Fern’s motives to live this way aren’t overtly interrogated, at least not right away. The audience understands that she’s compelled to roam, but we’re rarely afforded tangible insight as to why, and if, ultimately, she’s being fulfilled by that decision. Her nourishment comes from working and wandering — but her destination remains unclear.
Nomadland, beyond its caring exploration of Fern, blurs the lines between fact and fiction. The film’s documentary-like construction extends to many of its supporting characters, who are largely untrained actors playing versions of themselves. These folks, even more so than Fern, offer insight into the nomadic lifestyle. Through Fern’s eyes, and under Zhao’s direction, they’re rendered with agency and compassion.
Linda May (who plays herself, a true-life nomad) accompanies Fern for the initial bulk of her journey. In Arizona, she introduces her to a community of fellow nomads. Their stories spill out over campfire chats and survival lessons for life on the road. Their dialogue often appears improvised, as if they’re speaking directly to us. Their stories, by consequence, ring out with striking emotional truth.
Later, Fern meets Swankie (played by herself), a reluctantly helpful and sage vandweller, who articulates the true appeal of a life of wandering: curiosity, discovery, and wonder. Faced with a terminal illness, Swankie reflects on some of the most glorious moments of her life: Encountering a flight of a thousand swallows circling overhead, reflecting off the water below her canoe. Crossing paths with a family of moose or a single giant white pelican landing in front of her. A life beyond those worldly forces which constantly threaten to define her, to enclose her. And, of course, the friends she met along the way, who will remember her when she has passed on down the road.
In this quiet way, Nomadland evokes something beautiful about vagabond life without becoming maudlin. Zhao’s story is not judgmental. It’s observational — held at a distance. Joshua James Richard’s cinematography is unobtrusively beautiful. The film’s screenplay itself shows the same skilled restraint, withholding context in the form flashbacks, voiceovers, and outward demonstrations of emotion. There are no huge moments in the film, no grand Oscar monologue. Instead, Zhao respects the intelligence of her audience as she explores themes of human belonging, restlessness, and mortality.
There is no one like Frances McDormand. It’s hard to imagine anyone else inhabiting Fern like she does in this film. Her performance is expressive, nuanced, and humane as a woman in the twilight of her life.
By the film’s end, a year has passed. Fern has come full circle, and she faces a difficult decision. After spending time with another nomad, Dave, she begins to consider (tacitly) a settled-down life. He’s decided to go home, presumably for good. He’s been a warm, albeit clumsy, presence in her life, crossing paths with her multiple times on her journey. When he invites her to stay with his family, Fern finally faces an opportunity to exit the loop. To put down roots.
Zhao acutely captures Fern’s quandary in the film’s heartbreaking final minutes. For the first time, she articulates the questions that have been plaguing her: Has she spent too long remembering her life, rather than living it? By freeing herself of stillness, what has she really been escaping? And, what is she afraid of — lost independence, or something more fragile? By offering her heart to a new home, will she betray the memory of her husband?
For a moment, we see the conflict flickering in her storied eyes. She decides, ultimately, to go around the circle again — back to the road, to seasonal gigs, to New Year’s Eve outside her van, waving a single sparkler up at the empty sky.
Fern’s life is hardly encapsulated by the itinerant year we spend with her. The same is true of the friends she meets. We don’t know what will become of her, or of them. We may not even readily understand what she’s searching for. But by the end of Nomadland, we understand why.