My Review of "Nomadland"

Nomadland was released in 2020 with not a lot of publicity until recently. It's a movie that wouldn't appeal to all tastes but has very interesting and deep concepts. As I watched the movie I continued to understand different messages of what it was trying to say to the audience. It's too bad these movies aren't commercial successes. The industry would feel much more diverse with companies willing to take chances on different types of stories.

This movie starts off with an excerpt to explain the climate of the situation. What was once a thriving town in America is now deserted. The company in which the town depended on folded and all the occupants of the town had to move away and it now ceases to exist.

From that town lived our main character Fern. She had lived there with her husband for many years. She is now homeless and widowed. She's barely scraping by while doing odd jobs to make ends meet. As she continues to work away she meets some like-minded friends. These friends introduce her to a different way of living.

This way of living is basically the life of a nomad. They live in their vans and travel to different places to live their best lives. Many of these fellow colleagues of hers have also had great losses. They are all older and recognize that they should be spending their lives for experiences and not for chasing the almighty dollar.

There's a lot to take in when you consider Fern's scenario. The movie paints the picture of a very romantic lifestyle where she is off the grid with no one to answer to. However, I do love the fact that they even out the romanticism with stark reality. What if something goes wrong? Vans do require maintenance after all. You can't expect them to run forever. They also go into illnesses and other issues that may arise.

Still despite the negatives there are a lot of positives to living this nomad way of life. Fern is able to truly be free of most restrictions. Obviously there are laws and rules in place that she still follows. For the most part you can see how she can still enjoy her everyday living with her lifestyle. It also seems like this is the type of life that she should be living in some ways.

They explain that it's not for everyone and that it can be extremely lonely. Still people like Fern it does seem like it's something that she was meant to do a long time ago. She only discovered it recently.

All the characters that she meets along the way are a discussion into morality of life. How we should be spending our precious days that we should be cherishing. Ultimately the story goes deeper and reveals later on that this is more of a cathartic experience for her as she is still grieving. Everyone has to have closure in their lives and some people will never find it.

The aesthetics of the movie are quite epic in the way that they display the open American roads. I thought the badlands and the redwoods areas were particularly breathtaking. It all helped paint the picture of what an amazing experience Fern was going through in her journey to find herself.

I was also very shocked that she never really meets any bad people throughout her journey. Everyone is kind and compassionate. I hardly think this is truly the case but it helps simplify the story from becoming too complicated. It's understandable why they left it out.

Overall, I thought this was a very interesting and complex movie. It has a very realistic feel to it despite the fact that some of the scenarios are very idealistic. The pace of the movie is slower and understandably so as it fit the atmosphere of the movie. It's not too slow but dumbed down enough that I could even understand it. I have to give this movie a 7.5 out of 10. I think I could recommend this movie to a few people.