Mark Reviews Movies: NOMADLAND

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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 3, 2020

The mine in Empire, Nevada, closed in 2011. With it, the jobs went. The postal service soon dissolved the ZIP Code. The town is referenced several times in Nomadland, writer/editor/director Chloé Zhao's film about a woman from that place who now lives a nomadic life out of her van, but we don't see the remains of Empire until the end of the film. It's a ghost town. That's all that can be said of the place. We don't need to see it, although it's important that we eventually do. For most of this film, we just need to know that it haunts.

Many, many things haunt Fern (Frances McDormand), the protagonist of this simple but incredibly affecting film. She, having worked in the local human resources department for the company that ran the mine, and her husband, a miner, lost their jobs. With that, they lost their house—nothing special, just company track housing, except that it was home and offered a view of the desert that made it seem as if there were no boundaries between this little place and the whole of the world. They lost Empire, with a pool and even a golf course, and their friends, who worked and lived there.

Then, Fern lost her husband, who died of cancer, and the ghosts of the past just remained. She knows they had a good life together, although they should have had many years and maybe a few decades more. Fern knows she was good to him when he was sick, although maybe she should have pressed the button for the morphine drip a bit too long—if only because Fern now knows that her husband experienced a lot of pain by the end and that the end was coming, no matter what she or he may have done.

The simplicity of Zhao's film, based on a 2017 non-fiction book about modern-day "nomads" by Jessica Bruder, is that it has little to no story. It simply follows Fern, as she spends a year and change traveling the West and Southwest of the United States in her van. She takes temporary and odd jobs. She takes in the views and indulges in the comforting splendor of nature. She fixes up her van, collects and trades assorted items that might come in handy, and doesn't stay in one place too long, because the road is long, the days are short, and there is so much to see and do while trying to escape a past that won't give you a break.

Most importantly, Fern meets a lot of people. They are nomads like her, doing the same things Fern does—looking for work or living simply enough that the monthly Social Security check covers the expenses, finding new items to use now or trade later, gathering together for brief periods of time and then moving on, always with the promise that they'll meet these friends somewhere down the road.

That inherent and constant optimism, so prevalent in this laidback tale, seems to be how these people thrive. It's infectious, too. Even as we follow Fern, trapped in the past and uncertain about what the future might bring, there are these people, dealing with their own pasts and tragedies and daily uncertainties.

They keep going, though. One woman, whom Fern meets and spends some time with on her journey to nowhere in particular, is dying. She recently learned that the cancer she thought had been removed from her lungs had spread to her brain. It'll stop Swankie—just Swankie, as she's known in the film and in real life—one day and soon. Until then, she's going back to Alaska, where a kayak trip down the river will let her see the swallows, building their nests along cliffs. When they fly over the water and Swankie looks down on the reflection, it's as if she's up there in the sky, flying with them.

One of the more compelling aspects of Zhao's approach is that she uses real people—real-life nomads, doing all of the things we see them doing—in this film. Swankie is a real person (and, according to some quick research, still alive, thankfully), and so is Linda May, Fern's nearly constant companion, who works with Fern at a seasonal job packaging things for the country's largest retailer and, later, as an RV camp host near a national park.

So, too, is Bob Wells, a pretty well-known figure in RV-living circles, who hosts regular gatherings for other nomads, where they can learn about how to park for the night without getting into trouble and which size bucket is best one's necessary business. Late in the film, he opens up to Fern about the death of his son, and as shattering as that story is, that unstoppable optimism returns. It took this man some time to reach it, but now that he has it, he's not letting that feeling go.

The film, then, is mostly dramatization, eventually focused on Fern's relationship with Dave (David Strathairn), a fellow traveler and odd-job-taker who has a lot of regrets, too (He wasn't really a father to his son, let alone a good one, and in some simple advice that carries so much weight, Fern tells him, "Be a grandfather"). It's also, though, a documentary in a way, because Zhao spends so much time with these real people, observes their way of life, hears their stories, and almost seems to form the path of Fern's tale around what these people say and do.

So much of this film is about simply watching and truly listening, and in McDormand, the film possesses an incredible figure to watch and a most avid listener. It helps that McDormand, one of our best actors, gives off a sense that she could be living this way when she isn't making movies, but there's also her face—with its natural lines and furrows telling us of a life lived.

Her performance isn't showy, and it shouldn't be. McDormand exists here in a state of being—of having experienced, not only loss and pain, but also joy and freedom, such as when Fern runs around a natural rock formation, as if she's just trying to become lost—and of being absolutely present. McDormand is here to show us the state of Fern's character, stuck in the past and unsure of the future, but she's also here as a figure of compassion—to listen to these people, to provide genuine concern, to take and offer that hope, which is so essential for them to get through each day.

Nomadland is about the struggle to live in and for the present. The lucky of us get to live in this day, but the truly fortunate know how to live for it. That's the real journey of this film.

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