‘Nomadland’ tries to tell a meaningful story

I can’t recall the last film that has been so praised, so nominated by so many film and critics groups as “Nomadland.” Categories include

Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress,

Best Screenplay, Best Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress and others. It’s also been collecting heaps of the awards.

Confession: I don’t get it. Yes, Frances McDormand, who stars as a loner named Fern, turns in yet another in a career-long stream of wonderful performances. The Oscar folks haven’t done their nominating yet, but you can make a book on the fact that she’ll be on their list.

But, again, I don’t get all of the accolades. Based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 non-fiction book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century,” it’s a bleak film that relies almost completely on McDormand’s ability to hold viewers’ attentions with her expressive face.

Her Fern is a woman for whom life has thrown some tough curves, and who finds that an existence on the road rather than settling down any

where could be what’s best for her.

She’s a widow, lonely and sad, able to land only seasonal work living through a cold Nevada winter, and seemingly without any plan for the future. A major decision she does make is to live in the camper van that she drives down long highways.

A friend, Francie, knowing Fern’s predicament, invites her to stay with her family. But no appreciation is shown in her answer: “I’m not homeless, I’m houseless.”

It’s a slow-moving, mostly gray, melancholy movie, with a choppy structure that has people as well as the story stopping and starting over again. The fairest description would be to say that it’s about living life and loving life, or maybe it’s about the road not taken, and thinking about taking it.