Every so often I waste my time and reflect that I’ll never get the hours back. Then I regret that I didn’t do something more productive. Watching Nomadland is one of those instances.
Bizarrely, having wasted a few hours already, I am now writing this blog post which, because no one will read it anyway, will waste a bit more of my precious time. Still, on the off chance that I might save a few readers the bother of watching the film, it might do some social good.
Nomadland is a multi-award winning film (that’s the reason I chose to watch it) about the US traveller community that focuses on the life of Fern. Frances McDormand, who plays Fern, delivers a brilliantly balanced low-key performance, and was perfectly cast for the role.
The film is well crafted, it is like a clever mixture of film and documentary, it involves real members of the travelling community, and I can understand why it appealed to the film making industry.
An Amazon reviewer stated that it’s “a powerfully moving story of hope and resilience“ but, as far as I am concerned, Fern’s story is just depressing.
She loses her husband (he dies) and then, because it was connected to his job and the whole company is in ruin, she loses her home in rural Nevada, and with it her teaching job. Through what amounts to poverty, she has to live in a panel van whilst travelling around the country to work in a succession of crappy, minimum wage jobs.
Fern’s poverty is grim, the van is grim and when it breaks down, she can’t afford to fix it. So much for self-sufficiency and independence, she has to beg her sister for financial help. She has no toilet or shower facilities (think shitting in a bucket) and when she gets ill, it’s even more bleak. She even has to cut her own hair … so that looks shit too.
To make matters worse, there are two points in the film where she has a chance to live with a fancy man, or with her sister and have a proper roof over her head, and she declines both times to carry on living in her bloody van.
And when you think it couldn’t get anymore miserable … it does. Her friends start dying.
At one point she is driving by her old home to find that it, and all the other company houses, are empty. What a fucking waste – the place is a ghost-town and everything is in decline. The evicted folk might as well have been given the scope to stay in their homes and keep the community going.
I watched the film worrying that I was going to find out that Fern had been mugged, raped or even murdered – seriously, it was that bleak that I was worried it was going to get worse.
But in the end, not much happens, the film is long and it plods along at a sluggish pace. If you like an action movie, this isn’t it.
I persevered right until the end but then wished I hadn’t because by that point it was late at night and I honestly felt miserable and lonely. Admittedly it probably didn’t help that Mrs Baldwin and the kids were away for the weekend and that the house was quiet.
JK Rowling and Harry Potter came to mind because watching Nomadland was like getting a visit from the Azkaban dementors – the joy was well and truly sucked out of me.
Which, all in all, isn’t a good recommendation. If you are depressed, for God’s sake don’t watch this film. If you want to evaluate how lucky you are, watch it for a little while and then go and do something else.
One could argue that any film that generates such a depth of feeling must be good – but I don’t normally watch films to feel miserable afterwards. Why would anyone want to do that?
The best film I have ever seen is Schindlers’ List. When I came out of the cinema after watching it, I felt overwhelmed, quiet and rather tearful. And so did the rest of the cinema goers; I haven’t experienced such a quiet exodus from a film in the decades since. The experience was deep and meaningful and never repeated.
Nomadland was similar, but only in the sense that it will never be repeated.
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Bizarrely, having wasted a few hours already, I am now writing this blog post which, because no one will read it anyway, will waste a bit more of my precious time. Still, on the off chance that I might save a few readers the bother of watching the film, it might do some social good.
Nomadland is a multi-award winning film (that’s the reason I chose to watch it) about the US traveller community that focuses on the life of Fern. Frances McDormand, who plays Fern, delivers a brilliantly balanced low-key performance, and was perfectly cast for the role.
The film is well crafted, it is like a clever mixture of film and documentary, it involves real members of the travelling community, and I can understand why it appealed to the film making industry.
An Amazon reviewer stated that it’s “a powerfully moving story of hope and resilience“ but, as far as I am concerned, Fern’s story is just depressing.
She loses her husband (he dies) and then, because it was connected to his job and the whole company is in ruin, she loses her home in rural Nevada, and with it her teaching job. Through what amounts to poverty, she has to live in a panel van whilst travelling around the country to work in a succession of crappy, minimum wage jobs.
Fern’s poverty is grim, the van is grim and when it breaks down, she can’t afford to fix it. So much for self-sufficiency and independence, she has to beg her sister for financial help. She has no toilet or shower facilities (think shitting in a bucket) and when she gets ill, it’s even more bleak. She even has to cut her own hair … so that looks shit too.
To make matters worse, there are two points in the film where she has a chance to live with a fancy man, or with her sister and have a proper roof over her head, and she declines both times to carry on living in her bloody van.
And when you think it couldn’t get anymore miserable … it does. Her friends start dying.
At one point she is driving by her old home to find that it, and all the other company houses, are empty. What a fucking waste – the place is a ghost-town and everything is in decline. The evicted folk might as well have been given the scope to stay in their homes and keep the community going.
I watched the film worrying that I was going to find out that Fern had been mugged, raped or even murdered – seriously, it was that bleak that I was worried it was going to get worse.
But in the end, not much happens, the film is long and it plods along at a sluggish pace. If you like an action movie, this isn’t it.
I persevered right until the end but then wished I hadn’t because by that point it was late at night and I honestly felt miserable and lonely. Admittedly it probably didn’t help that Mrs Baldwin and the kids were away for the weekend and that the house was quiet.
JK Rowling and Harry Potter came to mind because watching Nomadland was like getting a visit from the Azkaban dementors – the joy was well and truly sucked out of me.
Which, all in all, isn’t a good recommendation. If you are depressed, for God’s sake don’t watch this film. If you want to evaluate how lucky you are, watch it for a little while and then go and do something else.
One could argue that any film that generates such a depth of feeling must be good – but I don’t normally watch films to feel miserable afterwards. Why would anyone want to do that?
The best film I have ever seen is Schindlers’ List. When I came out of the cinema after watching it, I felt overwhelmed, quiet and rather tearful. And so did the rest of the cinema goers; I haven’t experienced such a quiet exodus from a film in the decades since. The experience was deep and meaningful and never repeated.
Nomadland was similar, but only in the sense that it will never be repeated.
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