| Release Date: 19 February 2021 (USA) Genre: Drama IMDb Rating: 7.6 Director: Chloé Zhao Cast: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May |
Chloé Zhao is a name that is being heard all around the world of film and filmmaking nowadays. Ever since the premiere of her western/drama film, ‘The Rider’, audiences have been expecting what she does for her next feature film. Now that she is tapped into a the new MCU project that is releasing this year, ‘Eternals’, audiences are even more eager and pumped to see her beautifully crafted feature that premiered at the Venice Film Festival, ‘Nomadland’.
‘Nomadland’ is the name of her new road drama film based on the 2017 non-fiction book, ‘Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century’ by Jessica Bruder. Written and directed by Chloé Zhao, who has been sweeping every single critic’s circles director awards. The cast of the film only consists of two actors, Frances McDormand and David Strathairn, and the rest of the cast consists of non-actors like Charlene Swankie, Bob Wells, and Ryan Aquin.
The film centers around Fern (McDormand), who is a woman in her sixties who has lost everything in an economic collapse of a company town in rural Nevada due to the Great Recession. She then packs her van and embarks on a journey through the American West, exploring a life outside of conventional society as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad. A woman picking her way through the harsh subculture of older American transient workers.
Fern lives in her old van, which she names van “Halen”, and is unable to make ends meet on Social Security alone. She travels from place to place during the different seasons across the American West. She has worked in the Amazon warehouse, has flipped burgers at the Wall Drug Store, and has picked up trash at the Badlands National Monument. ‘Nomadland’ features real-life nomads who accompany Fern during her travels and serve as mentors and comrades in her exploration through the vast scenery of the American West.
It is one of the most realistic and authentic films of last year because, as I mentioned earlier, it consists of non-actors. Modern nomads that are playing themselves.
The stories that the people tell are a real reflection of their existence. A reflection of what they have passed through during their years as nomads. Everything in the film is real, from the real parking grounds for nomads to the local shops and Amazon storage warehouse. Chloé Zhao is an expert in shooting films to delicately beautiful. She shoots her films with care and elegance, capturing the natural beauty of the places she films in. The way she directors feels very ‘Malickian’. It embraces the human yearning for something more than survival. It finds beauty in the mundane and in the simplest of things.
Let us not forget about Frances McDormand, who once again delivers a tremendous, riveting yet simplistic performance. The legendary Oscar-winning actress delivers a performance that is not as ‘showcassy’ as her other two Academy Award-winning performances. It has a soothing, smooth, and natural feeling that just takes you away into the world of a nomad. It is difficult to explain with words how good and how realistic her performance feels, but it is a performance, unlike anything we have seen her in. She acts as a determined, independent, but wistful, and vulnerable woman. A woman who has lost everything and cannot quite allow herself to trust people completely, due to a promise that has been thoroughly shattered.
Chloé Zhao captures simplistic beauty, shooting the film in the most beautiful ways and the most beautiful places.
From Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, the home of the Burning Man Festival, to the South Dakota Badlands, which is famous for its beauty and onscreen appearance on Terrence Mallick’s 1973 film of the same name. The film captures Fern’s life with dignity and integrity. It is never shown as miserabilism or exploitation of the nomad community. Zhao just captures everything naturally and innately, which makes us curious about how these people live.
With real people playing themselves, beautiful scenery, and a great performance by Frances McDormand, ‘Nomadland’ shines masterfully.
Deserving of every praise that the film is given. One of the best and most beautiful films of the year. Earnest, immersive, and grounded while quiet. The way this film is directed allows the audience to absorb every single detail and aspect of pure beauty, simplicity and traveling. We get to know Fern and the people around her combined with a moving score and gorgeous cinematography.
Audiences can see ‘Nomadland’ as a story of a woman who is running away from her past through grief and despondency, but it is also a film that applies to a lot of Americans who have passed through events like these.
Americans who have felt lost because they are unassertive and unsure of where they are going next in life and what the next day will be like. Although most people cannot relate to Fern and her current life, we feel her pains of uneasiness and anxieties, making this film the definition of naturalistic and pragmatic beauty in the eyes of a Twenty-First Century nomad.
My Rating:
