Road to nowhere
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Fern is brought to life by a nuanced performance from a triple Oscar winner
Psychologists now have a term for the relentless drive to put a positive spin on tragic news. Still, the dangers of “toxic positivity” didn’t stop me from regarding Nomadland’s Oscar triumphs as three silver linings to a very dark year.
Oscar-winner Chloe Zhao has turned Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction book into a touching, gently amusing and achingly beautiful study of a genuine outsider.
It begins with a caption which reads like a minor footnote to 21st century American history. In January 2011, US Gypsum closed its mining plant in Empire, Nevada. “By July,” it adds, “the Empire zip code 89405 was discontinued”.
After loading a few belongings into a rusty white van, sixtysomething widow Fern (a wonderful Frances McDormand) travels to her new temporary job in an Amazon warehouse.
One of her workmates, Linda May (playing herself ), tells her about a desert camp run by Bob Wells (also playing himself ), the spearhead of the Nomads – a community of cash-strapped, van-dwelling lone pensioners who travel around America picking up seasonal work.
In a different film, this is where Fern would also embark on a metaphorical journey. But Zhao’s film is all the more touching for its restraint.
There’s no tragic back story to Fern’s upbringing or her childlessness.
And, like many of the tough old travellers she meets on her travels, her eyes are firmly fixed on the road ahead.
The complexity of her character is what makes her so intriguing. And she’s brought to life by a wonderfully nuanced performance from a now three-times Oscar winner. Could this grown-up and bracingly unsentimental film be the antidote to the “toxic positivity” of the Hollywood machine. Or am I guilty of positive thinking?