"Nomadland" (2020) Directed by Chloe Zhao #oscars #nomads #moviereview #movies

I originally watched Nomadland shortly after it’s initial release purely on the strength of its quirky title and my unabashed cinematic love for Frances McDormand. I wasn’t expecting it to be break my heart, and it did so all over again recently. Here’s the opening 15 minutes of this 107 minute multi Oscar winner:

Without any opening credits, the film opens with this slowly revealed crawl

“On January 31st, 2011, due to a reduced demand for sheetrock, US Gypsum shut down its plant in Empire, Nevada, after 88 years

By July, the Empire zip code, 89405, was discontinued”.

Short haired and wrapped in multiple layers against the biting winter and snow all around her, “Fern” (Frances McDormand) sifts through old boxes in a garage doubling for storage before carrying them one by one to her mini-van nearby. She returns and stops on one box in particular, sifting through it before tenderly grabbing an old jumper and lovingly sniffing and cradling it as she gently begins to sob. We cut to Fern now paying the owner of the storage facility before giving him a long and lingering heartfelt embrace before we cut again to a bright if snowy and cold looking day, and the long and winding roads ahead for Fern and her white/grey mini-van. A quick cut now sees Fern with her trousers around her ankles unceremoniously urinating in a bleak, cold, frost and snow covered field.

There is nothing or no-one for miles around. Cut to simple opening credit:

“Nomadland”

The above opening paragraphs are taken from my spoiler free review of "Nomadland" I originally penned and published to my Medium blog site on 1st October 2022 and which can be read in full and for free via my Substack blog site linked immediately below:

https://ramblingmusings666.substack.com/p/nomadland-2020-64fa6955e8a1

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https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0C4HZSTTH?ref_=dbs_p_pwh_rwt_anx_a_lnk&storeType=ebooks

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