Movie of the Week

No movie captures the wounded, restless heart of America today better than Nomadland, which premiered Friday on Hulu. The movie tells the story of Fern (Frances McDormand), a woman just shy of retirement age whose life in a Nevada company town is erased (along with the town’s zip code) when a local gypsum mine and factory are closed and her husband dies. She becomes a nomad, wandering the desert highways and RV camps of the American West like countless other older men and women who suddenly find no place for themselves in the country’s heartless economy.

You can read the reviews elsewhere of director Chloe Zhao’s (below) aching yet life-affirming masterpiece, which is based on a 2017 nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder and has the timeless feel of a classic like The Grapes of Wrath. But let me just say that while McDormand turns in another Oscar-winning performance — much more subtle and real than her other small-town turn in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri — the true stars of this film are non-actors like Bob Wells, a real-life evangelist for the nomadic life. The unvarnished conversations between Bob and Fern, especially the final one about life and death, will reverberate inside you for a long time.

What a beautiful movie — it makes you cry for America and believe in Americans all at once.