Nomadland
If there’s a god in Nomadland, it’s the great outdoors.
The movie follows the character of Fern (played by Frances McDormand), a feisty middle-aged widow from a small mining town in Nevada who takes to the road in a rundown van she has fixed up, traveling through the Western U.S. as a modern-day nomad.
On her travels, whether it’s through the rock formations of South Dakota’s Badlands or California’s romantic coastline, nature is the balm — the way of peace and transcendence.
Sure, there’s community along the road. Fern camps with a group of like-minded nomad van dwellers in Arizona. There’s a compassionate fellow seeker named Bob Wells who serves as grief counselor cum preacher.
But it’s the wide-open skies, the orange and purple sunsets and the encounters with animals — such as fellow nomad Swankie’s tale of a swarming flock of swallows — where true reverence for something bigger and holier can be found.
This movie has other moral themes — capitalism’s exploitation of the working class, the rejection of a consumerist way of life. Director Chloé Zhao’s gorgeous celebration of America’s Western landscapes suggests that ultimately the road to healing and transformation courses through nature. (Yonat Shimron)
