Nomadland (2020) – Movie Review

I’m not homeless, I’m just house-less. Not the same thing, right?

Nomadland followed one woman’s journey after losing everything, travelling from place to place to work while living in her van. 

While this may be a critically acclaimed movie, having won Golden Globes for Best Director (Chloé Zhao) and Best Motion Picture (Drama), as well as BAFTA awards for Best Film, Best Leading Actress (Frances McDormand), Best Director (Chloé Zhao) and Best Cinematography (Joshua James Richards), it just didn’t do it for me. To me, this movie depicted the struggles of living in a van and it was, for the most part, slow and boring. By the end of the film, it didn’t feel like there was enough of a pay off. And if I have to watch a 60 year old woman take a dump in a 6-gallon bucket, there better be a good pay off.

With that out of the way, I wanted to discuss some of the good things about this movie. The film takes place in Nevada and had some beautiful cinematography of the landscape – Views that no one but the nomads living smack-dab in the middle of the Nevada desert get to experience.

Something interesting I found was that some of the nomads in this film are real-life nomads. This most likely allowed Zhao to portray an authentic nomad experience to the audience. I thought Nomadland also did a good job showing how the nomad community made up of people all going through a similar experience were there for each other and were like a family.

Overall, I’d rate Nomadland 3/5 stars. Not because it was bad but because I didn’t see the point of the movie at the end. The story was just OK and there wasn’t enough pay off to make the journey seem worth it. This film is also outside of my usual genres, so it’s entirely possible I missed something. So don’t let me stop you from forming your own opinion, but I just wasn’t a fan and would not recommend it.

Nomadland is available on Hulu.