Chloe Zhao burst onto the movie scene with The Rider, an amazing story about a Native American Cowboy in South Dakota. Zhao’s tales are the best possible version of a Terrence Malick movie crossed with a John Steinbeck story; tales about struggling salt of the Earth people navigating spectacular Americana vistas. With Nomadland, Zhao proves that great actors can make her stories even deeper, utilizing Frances McDormand’s talents to tell a tall of the 2010s version of a Depression Era story.
McDormand plays Fern, a woman who lived most of her life in Empire, Wyoming. As the first scene says, Empire completely dissolved as a community once the local Gypsum processing factory collapsed. Fern, widowed and without children, eschews a normal retirement in favor of nomad living. She buys a van, makes it habitable, and travels across middle America from gig to gig, finding kindred spirits and moments of wonder along the way.
With her way of life destroyed by a faceless corporation, Fern picks up and goes on the movie, and stays on the move. She is not a recluse though; she’s very personable and kinda fun, and searches for a community of like minded folks for guidance, companionship, a community: basically hope itself. Along the way, Fern learns how to live again, finding peace staring at Zhao’s gorgeously shot sunsets or mountainscapes. In those sporadic meetups she learns perspective and a way of life she maybe had wanted but didn’t have reason to lead before. McDormand certainly will make you feel a tad less despondent for those poor towns that had to shut down because the main business picked up and left. Some adaptation is necessary, and the concept of home has to shift from a place to an idea. While 90% heartbreaking, Fern shows along the way that 10%, if you embrace your situation, can be better than you think it is.
Especially if you’re a bit of a wanderlust, which Fern is. The big crux of Zhao’s story dives deep into her main character, showing the audience what drives Fern to do what she does. Despite her economically risky circumstances, McDormand shows the audience how those concerns don’t bother Fern; in fact, she mostly enjoys the perpetual journey her life has become for a good chunk of the story early on. Zhao’s direction then slowly digs under the surface of Fern’s journey. Those little confidences she builds, perspective she gains, and time she has lets her introspect and discover if her wanderlust is covering up for something deeper, maybe darker/sadder? McDormand quietly, powerfully, delivers that journey to the audience, in a way that’s both complex but understandable if you’re paying attention. It also helps to be pensive when your director puts you in incredible locales like Zhao finds while wandering through the upper Midwest.
If Chloe Zhao wins an Oscar for Nomadland and gets a big hit with Marvel’s Eternals, then we might be witnessing the next great director blossoming before our very eyes. But even if this wonderful film doesn’t win best picture, Nomadland proves that Zhao is the next great director who can make gripping Western genre movies. She can battle it out with Taylor Sheridan: Sheridan will bring the violence, and Zhao’s characters will think about what they did.