Film Review: NOMADLAND

Sad Fern and one of her cigarettes. Who knows what she's thinking.

After months of hype about how great it is, yesterday Nomadland was finally available for viewing by the general public via Hulu. Being hard-core fans of the actress Frances McDormand, my husband and I were pumped up and ready to be blown away, since all the advertising and promotional articles have called it a "cinematic masterpiece" that would likely dominate this year's Oscars. Here are a few highlights:

1. We get to watch a sad, middle-aged woman named Fern (Frances McDormand) live a meager life inside her beat-up van. In one scene she sits on the toilet and has a rather noisome bowel movement, after which she pulls out a roll of toilet paper and wipes her butt. (That was a cinema first for me.) 

2. Regular people, meaning non-actors, portray themselves as nomads living in vans, cooking over fire pits and living frugally on the edges of society. They are a shaggy, craggy bunch who all look like they could use a good scrubbing.  

3. There are many, many -- too many? -- full-screen, National Geographic-worthy shots of the mountains, rivers, deserts, clouds and mostly barren landscapes of Nevada, South Dakota, Arizona, Nebraska and California. If seeing the American West is your thing, you'll love it.

4. There is virtually no plot beyond this: Fern is a recent widow whose town dried up after the local sheetrock plant closed and everyone moved away. Mourning her dead husband, she heads out to see America and comes upon a community of other van-dwellers in the desert. Grieving the loss of all she had, Fern is mostly non-communicative throughout, although once in awhile she smiles. She manages to forge friendships with two other women, and is seen actually sharing laughs with both. But they each eventually drive off in their own vans. (Life is a river.)

5. A fellow nomad (David Strathairn) likes Fern well enough to ask her to come live with him, in a house owned by his son and daughter-in-law who are new parents. She visits him but ultimately rejects family life, and is shown being uncomfortable even holding the new baby for five minutes. She also refuses the offer of shelter from her loving sister (Melissa Smith) who loans her money when the van needs repair. Fern prefers to remain, as she puts it, "houseless." 

5. The film does not address the elephant in the room, which is that Fern is deeply depressed and cut off from her own feelings and those of the people around her. We are never shown what the heck happened to make her this way. What she needs, besides a spa day, a haircut and a pair of jeans that fit -- hers are like two sizes too big -- is several sessions with a good shrink. Also she should quit smoking, something she does constantly.

6. The musical score is beautiful and outshines everything else.