Have you ever had a neighbor who was a girl as a kid that was the same age as you and your parents always pushed that you could possibly date her in the future, but you couldn’t seem to like her despite her being really nice. Well, that’s how I felt about this movie. I had to stretch really far for that analogy. I liked the movie, but I felt like it was missing another X-factor that could rank it as a spectacular horror film.

The film is about two children who recently lost their mother being forced to spend time with their new potential step-mom by their father. The children, Aiden and Mia, absolutely despise their father’s girlfriend, Grace because they blame her for their mother’s sudden suicide. The father thinks “hey! I know what will get them to like each other. I lock them in an isolated cabin during a snow storm and leave in the middle of the vacation.” That’s seriously what happens. So already, not feeling the dad on this one. He leaves the kids with the lady, who it turns out has a past that involves a cult and mass suicide. Strange things begin to occur at the lodge with just the children and Grace.

I didn’t particularly like any of the characters, but I did feel understand how they felt about Grace throughout the film. To them, she was this person who potentially broke up their parent’s marriage and caused their mother to commit suicide. I loved the way they only showed her silhouette in the beginning of the movie instead of having her on-screen. However, looking back, it did seem odd that they introduced her so ominously, only to have her be the focus of the film. I didn’t care too much about Grace throughout the movie either as she wasn’t the warmest to the kids nor did anything happen that made me want to root for her to live. They painted her too much like a villain in the beginning.

Nomadland (2020) is a film made for those who feel stuck in life. It won’t satiate your appetite for closure. It won’t make you throw out all your possessions and live the nomadic life-style (probably not). But, it will make those who feel they are just floating around, tethered to a past, feel noticed. Dealing with loss in life is a universal experience and everyone’s handle on it is different. Fern deals with it by packing her limited possessions in her van and calling it home, as she hits the American road in search of nothing in particular.

The cold tint, the soft piano melodies, and the isolating tracking shots of Nomadland are characters of their own in the film. They are the breath of the experience and keep it on track. The engine of the film is the conversations and life stories of the actual nomads on the journey with Fern. The director, Chloe Zhao, allows the “actors” (actual nomads) to dive into their experience and the common theme among all of them is deprivation. Their lives are interesting and occasionally passionate, but there is loss in their voice. The characters come and go as Fern does the same in their own lives. Bob Wells, a pioneer and visionary in the nomadic lifestyle, had a monologue about his deceased son that knocks you out with an emotional punch. 

“I could honor him by serving people. It gives me a reason to go through the day. Some days that’s all I’ve got”

Don’t do it.

How to get respect in the world.