{"id":9790,"date":"2021-02-19T17:14:24","date_gmt":"2021-02-19T17:14:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/?p=9790"},"modified":"2021-02-19T22:31:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-19T22:31:38","slug":"nomadland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/nomadland\/","title":{"rendered":"Nomadland"},"content":{"rendered":"
[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Originally posted December 3rd, 2020<\/em><\/p>\n

Frances McDormand proves, once again, that she is the master of stoic characters whose study of life\u2019s challenges is subtle, but evident, on her face. This film is a treatise on the economy, aging, family, friendship, health care, and self identity. Chlo\u00e9 Zhao makes the deliberately slow film a sometimes awkward and painful portrait of a widow, Fern, who is forced to make a new life for herself after losing her job after the 2008 recession.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Zhao does so effectively, incorporating setting and situation using real people, for the most part, instead of professional actors. This is not Chlo\u00e9 Zhao\u2019s first film, but builds on the skills she has developed in her previous work. Hard to believe that the writer\/director grew up in Beijing, went to boarding school in England by choice, and studied film in New York City when she so aptly portrays the wilds of the Western US in Nevada as if she lived there herself.<\/p>\n

Zhao\u2019s Director of Photography on this and her previous films (Songs My Brother Taught Me<\/i>, and The Rider<\/i>) is her real life partner, Joshua James Richards. Together they portray the reality of the landscape of Nevada as well as the personalities of the people This film could have been positioned in America today, during the COVID pandemic where restaurants and businesses are closing giving owners and employees no safety net.\u00a0<\/span>[\/vc_column_text][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”9800″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”9792″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”9791″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]McDormand, as Fern, is a widow who has lost her job in a town where everyone worked at a Gypsum factory in Empire, Nevada. It closed down when the sheetrock business collapsed. The first scenes have her cleaning out her storage shed. Then she gets into her rickety old van which is now her home, freeing her to wander. Fern seems ready, with a bit of trepidation, to get rid of all of the stuff she won\u2019t need on the road and start her adventure as a modern day nomad.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

McDormand read the book Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century <\/i>by Jessica Bruder and brought it to Zhao after seeing the director\u2019s acclaimed The Rider,<\/i> about a bronco buster. She believed the director could capture the reality facing a contemporary nomad in the West. McDormand, also producer, wanted a detailed portrait of a 70-something Baby Boomer who had not achieved the American dream of a secure retirement. The actress gets to explore the role just as Fern had to learning from other Nomads, how to live on the road.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

She takes a job working at an Amazon warehouse which makes her look like an ant in a gigantic room filled like a Rubik\u2019s cube of conveyer belts. Not exactly her dream job. On the road, she meets people, who, like her, have found themselves hitting the highway to exist in a life of flea markets, bartering and trading for their needs and wants, and for temporary friendship. That\u2019s how she meets Swankie and Linda May, their real names.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fern is standoffish and awkward when she meets real nomads.\u00a0 <\/span>Zhao studied these characters rewriting dialogue on the fly. Linda is sweet and helpful, Swankie is a crusty one. Zhao handles their developing friendship which changes as they meet, go separate ways and meet up on the road again. The scene where many gather and celebrate together is one of the few uplifting scenes in the film. The most tragic is when tragedy strikes regarding possessions she was keeping aside for sentimental reasons. It\u2019s heartbreaking.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”9798″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”9799″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1\/3″][vc_single_image image=”9797″ img_size=”full” alignment=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column_inner][\/vc_row_inner][vc_column_text]The stark setting is offset by the relationships Fern develops on her journey. Including one with a man named David, (David Straithairn) who takes an interest in her, but is ultimately rebuffed. She had to learn to be resourceful, when to give and take and who she could trust. It\u2019s a scary process. In the end, she has to lean on family to survive.<\/p>\n

The film moves at a glacier\u2019s place, but every line in McDormand\u2019s weathered face intimates what\u2019s beneath the surface. Much like Fern\u2019s life, your patience is not rewarded with a huge satisfying ending. This is the kind of in-depth character study McDormand does so well and her performance is more rewarding than the film.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Searchlight Pictures 1 hour 48 minutes\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 <\/span>R<\/p>\n

In Select Theaters \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Streaming on HULU, Disney + and ESPN<\/i><\/b>[\/vc_column_text][vc_video link=”https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=dVP7PNRx8Mw” el_width=”80″ align=”center” css_animation=”fadeInUp”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][\/vc_section]\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[vc_section][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Originally posted December 3rd, 2020 Frances McDormand proves, once again, that she is the master of stoic characters whose study of life\u2019s challenges is subtle, but evident, on her face. This film is a treatise on the economy, aging, family, friendship, health care, and self identity. Chlo\u00e9 Zhao makes the deliberately slow film a sometimes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9793,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9790"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10569,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9790\/revisions\/10569"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/moviesandshakers.com\/staging\/4428\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}