For the second time in quick succession, I watched an inflight movie that merited a post all to itself...

Nomadland, directed by Chloe Zhao, appeared in 2020. I remember reading favourable reviews, and hearing about awards. And even in inauspicious circumstances -- with a long journey chaining me to my seat -- it did not disappoint.

We follow a fictional character called Fern (Frances McDormand) whose vicissitudes -- the death of her husband; the dissolution of her home township (Empire, Nevada), when the gypsum works closed down; the necessity to live somewhere cheaper -- have led her to take to the road in her camper van (called Vanguard), seeking casual employment wherever she can find it.

In many ways, it's a sad and bleak movie. People have some tragic reasons for being on the road: Family break-up; financial disaster; unemployment; terminal illness; and many more. And it's precarious. Your van can give out. Your health can give out. It may not always be easy to find work. You can be moved on at the drop of a hat (and it's pretty scary to hear someone knocking at your van door late at night...).

There are many, many shots of Fern alone. Resilient and determined, yes -- but alone. Alone at Christmas. Alone at New Year. Alone in the diner.


Another ghost town... Bodie, Nevada, 2004

And yet there is obviously a pull as well as a push. The camaraderie, with similar souls, who know exactly where you're at; the beauty of the natural world (there is some really splendid scenery); the freedom to do what you want when you want...

As the movie progresses, we see that there are two homes Fern could be part of. But that's not what she wants. She can't imagine settling down in a tiny bedroom in the ordinary house of a married sister who doesn't really understand her. And she shies away from a relationship that could have developed (with Dave, played by David Strathairn). She has always pursued something that lies beyond her immediate experience, says her sister. She has always wanted something different. So, in many ways, she's exactly where she wants to be.

A lot of me really understands that.

But, at first at least, she has not thrown everything to the four winds. We see her visiting her lock-up. And in her van she takes along some crockery, a gift from her father. It gets broken (by Dave). She has so few precious things, and the banal but memory-laden plates get broken... She tries to glue them back together... Would she still have done that later in the film? Hard to tell.



It's a simple life that Fern leads. We often see launderettes, and very basic cooking and toileting.

And her world is very much the catch-as-catch-can gig economy. We see her packing at the Amazon warehouse, doing cleaning and maintenance at an RV site, working in a diner, working the beet harvest... There's no sharply targeted socio-economic comment here. We're not shown egregious exploitation or poor working conditions per se (aside from those caused by arrogant members of the public...). We're just shown uncertainty, and constant change.

Similarly, there are only a couple of overtly political exchanges -- when, for example, the leader of a non-profit that supports nomads pushes back against the life-long education that puts dollars at the centre of everything, or when Fern pushes back against a complacent real-estate agent, challenging him to explain why the world's people are continually being corralled into buying houses...

But there's nothing that is in your face. We just piece it together for ourselves. It's complicated, Zhao seems to be saying.



Is the movie angry enough about the economic malaise that has projected so many older people (and others) into this lifestyle? Peter Bradshaw certainly wonders... But I tend to agree with Gautam Sunder: "We also wait for the anger to come -- about equal opportunity, the economy, the corporations, the government -- but it never does, and in a way, perhaps that helps Nomadland accomplish what it aims for with its open-endedness and lack of conflict resolution."

Maybe I've imbibed too much shikataganai... But I prefer Zhao's quiet sense of proportion. Shot after shot emphasizes the bigness of the landscapes that the travellers crisscross, and the smallness of the human being.

The big dinosaur particularly lends itself to the quest for metaphor... But we're also reminded of the big, big heavens. Atoms from billions of years ago, says one of the speakers, can be found right now in our bodies... With that perspective, not even the most fixed and solid and reliable of lives can seem anything other than puny. And economic systems? Well, humanity has known many; they all require individuals to be creative and adaptive.

The film is constructed around just two professional actors, McDormand and Strathairn. Other key characters are real people, real-life nomads. There's Swankie (who -- in a rare departure from reality -- is terminally ill in the film, but not in real life); there's Bob Wells (he's the one who runs the support network, and genuinely suffered the tragedy of his son's suicide, which he talks about in the film); and there's Linda May, who was on the road for a number of years, and can testify to the dramatic expansion of the nomadic community (she subsequently put down roots, having decided that she didn't want the end of her particular road to find her alone and isolated).

McDormand certainly took Fern's life lessons to heart: "I was 60 at the time we made it... There’s a lot of me in it, a lot of things from my past and my childhood. I always felt that when I turned 65, I would change my name to Fern and hit the road." But she also respects the hardships involved: "It's not for the faint of heart."