Nomadland 2020: Kudos for Focusing on Folk Movies Often Ignore; But It Lets Its Subjects Down

 

"Nomadland" 2020
Chloe Zhao, writer director
Frances McDormand, David Strathairn, and "real people" stars

 

"Nomadland" is a low-budget film about displaced senior citizens, almost all white, who live in their vehicles and travel from one low-paying job to another around the West and Midwest.

 

I have much in common with the folks onscreen. Even though there was much onscreen to love, in the end, I felt betrayed by "Nomadland."

 

First, what I loved: the real people. "Nomadland" features Linda May, Charlene Swankie, Derek Endres, and Bob Wells, three real "nomads" playing fictionalized versions of themselves. Their authenticity and heart burns right through the screen. All of them brought tears to my eyes. I had to stop watching a couple of times, I was so moved.

 

I loved the film's willingness to talk about poor, white people, a demographic that is mostly mocked in mainstream media. We are "white trash," "trailer trash," and, of course, homeless poor whites are really the bottom of the barrel. Too, all the main characters have gray hair and, except for the movie-star-handsome David Strathairn, are not particularly good-looking. I loved the attention that the film paid to Charlene Swankie, a plump and creased-cheeked woman in her seventies. She's one of the most charismatic, interesting characters I've ever seen onscreen, and she is no curvy starlet.

 

"Nomadland" focuses on poor people, living rootless, homeless, isolated lives, working jobs few would want. One job is Amazon factory worker; another is cleaning toilets in a national park; another is harvesting beets. Agricultural labor, which I've done, is backbreaking. I did it when I was much younger and I spent off-hours immobile in pain, waiting for my muscles to recover. What must it be like to do that work in your sixties?

 

What I wish the film had handled better. "Nomadland" doesn't have much of a plot, script, or character development. It's more of an episodic diorama. Here's Bob Wells, telling his story. Here's Linda May, telling her story. Here's Derek Endres, for his moment in the spotlight. We don't stick with one character long enough to get to know him or her in depth. This episodic approach treats the nomads as if they were freaks in a freak show, rather than deep characters worthy of our investment and time.

 

These folks all tell tragic tales. There are a couple mentions of suicide, of poverty and despair. I have to ask: would the character who hit the road after a suicide had responded differently if health care or pastoral care had walked the sufferer through the tragedy to the other side of healing?

 

Have people like Swankie rejected society because of latent conditions like social anxiety, that would respond to treatment, or are they just introverts? Another character spoke of suicide. What if that character had met with a caring professional?

 

In other words, are they on the road because of mental illness? Because of inborn traits like Asperger's or other issues that make contact with other people difficult?

 

The movie never convinced me that this was just about economics. If it is just about economics, then why does the film work so hard to make the nomad life look romantic and enviable? If it's a problem of economics, then how about offering some potential solutions? If there are armies of poor, elderly people driving up and down highways, sleeping in parking lots and dreading that knock on the window from a security guard growling, "No overnight parking," then shouldn't we be doing something about it? And why is there such a huge disconnect between rents and what a retiree who has worked all of her life can reasonably pay?

 

The film never even hints at any answers to these issues. In that way, I do feel that the film doesn't treat its "real" characters as respectfully or compassionately as it might. Rather than treating them as people we should care about, they become superficial curiosities.

 

I've also gotta say that I didn't like France McDormand. I didn't like her performance and I didn't like her character. McDormand acts up a storm. Her face is a series of twitches, grins, grimaces, scowls, and soulful stares. I had no idea what she was reacting to half the time. Perhaps a private dialogue between her face and her fleas.

 

I really disliked her character, "Fern." I had no idea what motivated Fern. Her husband died and she lost her home and job when a gypsum plant shut down. These are tough life events, but many of us go through similar events and eventually find a path back to love and a new home. Why doesn't that happen for Fern? The David Strathairn character offers her what appears to be a sincere and appealing alternative to a solitary life on the road. I found Fern's behavior toward the Strathairn character to be completely incomprehensible.

 

There are a couple of scenes, one, of Fern waving her arms in the Badlands, and another, of Fern walking besides the ocean, that I did not understand at all. The camera focuses, at length, on Fern's face, signaling that something noteworthy is transpiring in Fern's mind. What is that something? Hope? Despair? Pleasure at being in nature? Missing her husband and former life? Worry about the future? Thoughts about what she'll have for dinner? The movie doesn't care enough about Fern to find out, or to communicate its discovery.