![]() ![]() McDormand stars as Fern, a widow and former substitute teacher in Empire, Nevada – a town wiped off the map by a factory closure – who is forced into piling some possessions into a tatty van and heading off, something she accepts with an absolute lack of self-pity. Zhao was even allowed to film inside one of Amazon’s eerie service-industry cathedrals. So they have become nomads, a new American tribe roaming the country in camper vans in which they sleep, looking for seasonal work in bars, restaurants and – in this film – in a gigantic Amazon warehouse in Nevada, which takes the place of the agricultural work searched for by itinerant workers in stories such as The Grapes of Wrath. They are grey-haired middle-class strivers reduced to poverty who can’t afford to retire but can’t afford to work while maintaining a home. Nomadland is about a new phenomenon: America’s 60- and 70-something generation whose economic future was shattered by the 2008 crash. ![]() This quiet, self-effacing performance may be the best of her career so far. With artistry and grace, Zhao folds nonprofessionals into an imagined story built around a cheerful, resourceful, middle-aged woman played by Frances McDormand. It is a gentle, compassionate, questioning film about the American soul. C hloé Zhao’s Nomadland is an utterly inspired docu-fictional hybrid, like her previous feature The Rider. ![]()
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