Nomad­land – first look review

At the start of Chloé Zhao’s Nomad­land, a title card informs us that in 2011, after 88 years of oper­a­tion, the Unit­ed States Gyp­sum Cor­po­ra­tion closed its plant in the small town of Empire, Neva­da. The res­i­dents had to vacate their homes, which were owned by the com­pa­ny, and the local ZIP code was dis­con­tin­ued. It effec­tive­ly became a ghost town. Draw­ing on the expe­ri­ences detailed in Jes­si­ca Bruder’s 2017 non-fic­tion book of the same name, Zhao chron­i­cles a year in the life of one woman forced out of Empire as she seeks work in var­i­ous far-flung locales across the Unit­ed States.

In an encounter with a young girl she used to tutor, Fern (Frances McDor­mand) who is liv­ing in a beat­en-up, ​“rat­ty” van, is asked by the con­cerned teenag­er if she’s home­less. She shakes her head defi­ant­ly and says, ​“I’m not home­less. I just don’t have a house. That’s dif­fer­ent, isn’t it?” The girl doesn’t seem much con­vinced, but nods her head all the same, and bids Fern farewell. Fern goes back to her van, which con­tains a bed, a stove, a buck­et, and the few mea­gre pos­ses­sions she’s cho­sen to bring with her.

The van – chris­tened Van­guard – is Fern’s refuge. Giv­ing a friend a tour, she proud­ly explains how she’s mod­i­fied it to pro­vide more stor­age space, includ­ing using part of her late husband’s fish­ing box as a cup­board door which drops down to pro­vide an extra kitchen counter. The loss of her spouse looms under­stand­ably large for Fern, and the first time we see her, rum­mag­ing through her stor­age con­tain­er, she comes across a work­shirt of his and paus­es, vis­i­bly upset, before she hugs it close to her chest. But there’s no time to grieve in cor­po­rate Amer­i­ca, and Fern hus­tles from job to job, pin­balling from Christ­mas work at an Ama­zon dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­tre in Neva­da to camp­ground employ­ment in the Bad­lands Nation­al Park and, lat­er on, employ­ment at the his­toric Wall Drug near Mount Rushmore.

These gigs change with the sea­sons, and Fern dri­ves from state to state pick­ing up tem­po­rary employ­ment and try­ing to keep busy. She finds friends in a like-mind­ed com­mu­ni­ty who meet up in Ari­zona – all old­er Amer­i­cans, liv­ing in their vehi­cles and for­mal­is­ing the nomad cul­ture through fairs and gath­er­ings. Some do it because they love the free­dom it offers, oth­ers for finan­cial rea­sons, but all share an under­stand­ing that the gov­ern­ment isn’t going to look after them, so they have to look after one anoth­er. They rec­om­mend camp­sites and places to work, and gift each oth­er unwant­ed pos­ses­sions. Despite the obvi­ous hard­ship and grief that blights many of them, they pos­sess awe-inspir­ing resilience and deter­mi­na­tion to live life on their own terms.

Along­side the real-life nomads who play her friends and col­leagues, McDor­mand slips in seam­less­ly. Fern is a sto­ic, resource­ful pro­tag­o­nist, but not with­out vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty, which we glimpse in breath­tak­ing moments where she allows her­self to let her guard down. We see Fern when she’s sick, Fern when she’s upset, Fern when she’s hap­py – and McDor­mand, who won her sec­ond Best Actress Oscar in 2018 for her incan­des­cent per­for­mance in Three Bill­boards Out­side Ebbing, Mis­souri, proves there is no end to her tal­ent or ver­sa­til­i­ty. It’s an under­stat­ed per­for­mance of the utmost ten­der­ness and care.

Her co-stars are equal­ly valu­able, and Zhao’s gift as a sto­ry­teller is root­ed in how deeply she makes us care for each and every char­ac­ter she places in the frame. From the cur­mud­geon­ly Swankie to the kind­ly David (David Strathairn), who takes a shine to Fern, each is wor­thy of a fea­ture film in their own right, but we’re grate­ful to just catch a snip­pet of their life as Fern con­tin­ues on down her own road.

Despite the back­drop of finan­cial uncer­tain­ty and the ruins of the Amer­i­can Dream promised then reneged upon to count­less gen­er­a­tions of blue-col­lar work­ers, Nomad­land is a com­pas­sion­ate, peo­ple-focused sto­ry. Its polit­i­cal impli­ca­tions are fas­ci­nat­ing and will undoubt­ed­ly spark con­ver­sa­tions between audi­ences as to their mean­ings. To give just one exam­ple, it’s inter­est­ing to note that the town of Empire sits on the edge of the Black Rock Desert, most famous for the annu­al Burn­ing Man Fes­ti­val; for­mer­ly a cel­e­bra­tion of coun­ter­cul­ture, now a place for celebri­ties such as Paris Hilton and Hei­di Klum to be seen pranc­ing around in their finery.

But Zhao doesn’t appear inter­est­ed in cre­at­ing didac­tic art which tells us how to feel or what to believe. In her pre­vi­ous two films, Songs My Broth­ers Taught Me and The Rid­er, she explores trau­ma and recov­ery, plus the burn­ing desire to escape unfor­tu­nate cir­cum­stances. Nomad­land feels like a con­tin­u­a­tion of these inter­ests. All three of her fea­ture films feel so open to inter­pre­ta­tion, but also encour­age the view­er to con­sid­er the rela­tion­ship between humans and nature, and to bask in the great untouched beau­ty that still remains beyond the cityscapes of mod­ern America.

Work­ing with her reg­u­lar cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Joshua James Richards, Zhao cre­ates stun­ning images of the Amer­i­can wilder­ness, fram­ing it as some­thing both ter­ri­fy­ing and awe-strik­ing. One shot of McDor­mand sit­ting amid a giant stack of fresh­ly-har­vest­ed pota­toes shows us how small we are in the con­text of wider soci­ety. Anoth­er, of her in a dim­ly-lit bath­room with dozens of moths flut­ter­ing around, evokes a sense of indus­tri­al­i­sa­tion encroach­ing on nature.

Nomad­land might recall the work of Ter­rance Mal­ick and Kel­ly Reichardt, but Zhao is not ​“the next” any­one – she’s the first Chloé Zhao, and to speak of a film­mak­er only in terms of what came before is to do them a dis­ser­vice. Zhao’s tal­ent for cap­tur­ing the fringes of mod­ern Amer­i­ca with­out any hint of melo­dra­ma or voyeurism belies a deep trust between sto­ry­teller and sub­ject, and it’s thrilling to see her evolve with each new project. All this to say: the melan­choly lyri­cism of Nomad­land is some­thing tru­ly spe­cial, and this qui­et mar­vel of a film deserves your attention.