About a week or so ago, I was visiting with an old friend and we began to watch a show involving families, of various walks of life, looking to purchase a tiny home for their future. After a little while, I realized that there are, indeed, many ways to make life work, depending on what you have and what you plan to do with it. Simultaneously, not everyone chooses where they are, at a given time and place, and they are simply attempting to make the most of a difficult situation. Either way, what each individual is really seeking is a connection to other people and respect from everyone else around them. As with most things in life, it is a simple goal, but not one that is easily attained.
In keeping with the somewhat recent trend of movies dealing with true-to-life scenarios, “Nomadland” explores the plight of starting over, particularly at a later age. 
If you want to stretch the definition of tiny home living, you cannot get much smaller than the inside of a small van. Director Chloe Zhao (“The Rider”) agreed to write and direct the film after being approached to take on the project by Frances McDormand (“Isle of Dogs”) and Peter Spears (“Call Me by Your Name”). It is based on the book, ‘Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century,’ written by Jessica Bruder (‘Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man’). Zhao, McDormand and Spears all went into the project as producers, as well.
“Nomadland” takes place in the year of 2011. McDormand is Fern, a stubborn and self-sufficient woman who has lost the life she once knew and has taken to traveling around the country, finding jobs along the way, and living out of her van. 
She soon discovers an entire community of people who live the same lifestyle and have been doing so for years, before she arrived. One thing that Fern makes clear from the outset is that she is NOT homeless. She is just “house-less.” The distinction truly has merit.
She encounters numerous, interesting individuals; many of which are true nomads in real life, by the way, but there is one who stands out from the rest of them: David, played by David Strathairn (“Godzilla: King of the Monsters”). 
You might notice that every actor plays a character with the same first name, apart from McDormand. I am positive that this was done intentionally; not to patronize the prospective viewing audience with some attempt to make all these wealthy, celebrated actors and actresses more relatable, but as a method to motivate everyone to be MORE themselves and not just hired performers.
Early on, Fern is earning as she goes and accepting the help of friendly strangers. Depending on how you view societal roles, you might think that people should not have to live like this and so the government needs to step in, but if this country makes this lifestyle possible and certain individuals prefer it, maybe the answer is not more government, but less, instead. “Nomadland” rarely brings this up and tries to preach a specific socio-political viewpoint. When it does, it is brief and to the point and then moves on. You could say that this makes those moments really stand out, which they do, but the volume does not bother me as much as the repetition would have, hypothetically.
In any case, probably the most significant of the real-life nomads is one Bob Wells. In both this film and in real life, he is leader and inspiration to thousands who live the minimalist, “vandweller” lifestyle. Swankie is another effective, real-life vandweller. I do not know how much of her story within the movie is actually hers, but she runs with it as though it IS hers and she plays the part remarkably well. I would go so far as to say that her story and performance is the most-memorable of the included nomads in the film.
Where the story seems to lose momentum, for me, is when Fern is forced to return to her remaining family for help and the whole truth comes out about her character. It is almost as if the mystery and restraint of what makes Fern who she is best left behind the curtain. Once she hits the road again, you view her character in a totally different light and it just is not the same, in my opinion. By this time, she has gone through the cycle of a full year in her new confines and we can only expect that she will rinse and repeat for as long as her body, mind and spirit will allow her to.
Overall, I thought that Frances McDormand’s performance was gutsy and challenging in a way that I have not often seen, up to this point. I credit the director for helping to bring that about; she took some risks and they mostly paid off. The story is thin, but also not that important. However, McDormand can only carry the whole movie, as anyone else could, so far. I think the whole film would have been better off with a quicker finish that does not reveal quite a such about Fern as we wound up getting, in the end. Be ready for a lot of acclaim, though. Some of it is definitely warranted. We shall see…
Director: Chloe Zhao
Screenwriter: Zhao
Based on: ‘Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century,’ by Jessica Bruder
Starring: Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May as May, Swankie, Bob Wells, Derek Endres as Derek and Peter Spears as Peter
Distributed by: Searchlight Pictures
Release: September 11th, 2020 (Venice) and February 19th, 2021 (United States)
