Review of Nomadland (2021) by Joelgreenberg — 10 Apr 2021

Nomadland is an unsparing look at an abandoned segment of american society, most powerfully represented by the reality of a town that literally disappeared because its main industry shut down. With the closure, the townspeople were scattered to the winds of fate and their own capacity to deal or not.

At the same time, it speaks of Despair, capital D, of the soul of a nation. The first glimpse of an Amazon warehouse in operation was perhaps the film's most harrowing and dehumanizing moments.

So, that's the good part. Less good is the relentlessness of an empty landscape and profiles of the common folk who live as nomads, moving from place to place. The sense of time is removed from their lives and so, too, is the reality of a life surrendered.

Most of the characters portrayed are not actors. Rather, they are the common folk themselves. Apart from Frances McDormand and David Stathairn, everyone else presents as if this is a documentary which, to be fair, it is. And as a determined plot-scant telling, the documentary seems to me a fair descriptor.

All this said, I felt that the film's many panning shots of empty landscapes and broad, unfocussed horizons wore thin. Perhaps as much as the dust stirred by the vans and RVs, I understood the filmmaker's point but I longed for anything that could interrupt the monotony and illuminate the inner lives of even one of the nomadic travellers.