Clearly, it was not part of her plan to live this way.

He is not a natural nomad.Īnd then you have Fern, whom I see as caught in the middle.

By the end of the movie, he is ready to live a more normal life, in a house, with his son and his family. On the other end of the spectrum, you have David Strathairn’s character, Dave. In his big monologue, he describes how he has left the system that ensnares most of us - capitalism, basically - and tried to create something new for himself and others. You have somebody like Bob Wells, for whom this lifestyle seems like a calling. (I didn’t see the 2017 film The Rider, despite the buzz at the time, and I am now filled with regret.) We see the many different paths that bring people to nomadic life. whatever the filmmaker might want to say about America or anything else.īut I think director Chloé Zhao avoids that trap almost entirely.

It would be very easy for a film like this to fetishize the nomads, to flatten them into some kind of talisman that stands in for. Where do you start with Nomadland? What moved you, interested you, or frustrated you?ĭylan Scott: What struck me most (on my first and only watch so far) was the complexity it granted to this community and the people who are a part of it. And of course, there are the questions people have raised about the way the film treats labor and exploitation, which I also want to dig into. There are fictional characters living among “real” people, and images that seem to be responding to American iconography - plains, sunsets, mountains, the open road. So much grief.īut it’s a complicated movie. It was only on second viewing that I was overwhelmed by the actual story, about a woman who has lost everything - her home, her job, her place in the world, and her beloved husband - just desperately trying to keep it together. But I want to start out by saying that the first time I watched it, I thought mostly about this community of nomads that Fern joins and the outline of their lives. The emotional impact of NomadlandĪlissa Wilkinson: I feel like there’s so much to talk about with Nomadland (and that, for me, is a hallmark of a worthwhile movie).

What makes this film appealing to Academy voters? What makes it emblematic of the year? And should it win?īelow, Vox film critic Alissa Wilkinson, policy reporter Dylan Scott, and critic at large Emily VanDerWerff talk about Nomadland, Chloé Zhao’s drama about a woman grappling with loss and grief while living among a community of “nomads” on the road, loosely based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 nonfiction book. That’s a lot of movies to watch, analyze, and enjoy! So in the days before the ceremony on April 25, Vox staffers are looking at each of the nominees in turn. This year, eight films are in the running for Best Picture, the most prestigious award at the Oscars.

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