OVP: Nomadland (2020)

Film: Nomadland (2020)

Stars: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May, Charlene Swankie, Bob Wells

Director: Chloe Zhao

Oscar History: 6 nominations/3 wins (Best Picture*, Director*, Actress-Frances McDormand*, Adapted Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

Few films this year have instantly gotten the rapturous reviews of Nomadland.  One of several titles that technically came out in 2020 (but will hit wide release in 2021), the movie has been greeted with hosannas for director Chloe Zhao & lead actress Frances McDormand.  I did not see Zhao's last film (The Rider), but heard great things, and was excited to see what all the fuss was about, so when Lincoln Center did a very limited release I jumped at the opportunity & got tickets.  What I found was a beautiful, thoughtful film that lived up to the hype & will make you look at America differently when we escape from this wretched year (and are able to see it once more).

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is a lot about feeling, and very little on plot, but essentially this is the story of Fern (McDormand).  She's a woman who lives on the outer edges of society, taking on odd jobs in factories & restaurants to essentially ensure that she can pay for food & her van, which she lives in.  As the movie progresses, she's mentored by a series of real-life figures (May, Swankie, & Wells, none of whom are professional actors), as well as briefly being courted by David (Strathairn), another drifter who seems like he'll give up this life to spend time with his grandchild.  The movie doesn't give us anything in terms of flashback, but through stories we understand that Fern has been in mourning for her husband, who passed away, and the house that she used to live in before the Great Recession closed down the factory in her town, & essentially made her destitute.

The movie is the type that probably doesn't play as well on the small screen (that's how I saw it, for the record, as Minnesota's theaters are closed).  I've seen the way that people watch movies (including me, sometimes, I won't lie), where they are half distracted, pressing pause or glancing down at their cell phones while something is happening, and that's not going to work for Nomadland.  This is a film that is as much about establishing a mood as it is about a story (very little actually happens if you just go by plot), and so if you're not fully concentrated you're going to miss something.

Because Nomadland is the rare picture in 2020 that genuinely has "cinematography" as a calling card (other than Mank, this is the only time this has really happened for me this year).  Joshua James Richards recalls Terrence Malick in the wind-swept ways that he lights the screen, and it's really something to behold; always elegant, never forced, just radiant light across the screen.

Nomadland is not for the cynical, but that's not an affliction I carry too heavily, as it's slightly too long & definitely wants to bring hope to situations that many of us look on with pity.  Fern is a woman who has been dealt an impossibly bad hand (a dead husband, lost financial security, & a foreclosed home), but still sees herself as a winner, and wants you to see that too.  McDormand is the perfect choice for such a role, a natural Hollywood outsider who fights some of her more indulgent acting tics (there's no shades of Mildred Hayes even when it might have scored her a bigger onscreen moment to be tough-as-nails), she brings a sensitivity, and a worn quality to Fern that just sings onscreen.  Zhao's ode to a changing America, and the way that the spirit of its citizens is never crushed (even as the bureaucracy of the country insists on it being trampled repeatedly) is a fresh film, and I left enamored & I left full of promise.