Adrian Baldwin
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Observations
  • Reviews
  • Blog
  • The Blog Library
  • My 70s Things
  • Contact Me
  • Links

​Nomadland – a film review

2/16/2022

2 Comments

 
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.     
​
Blog Home
Blog Library
Home
Follow @AdrianBaldwin71
2 Comments
Andrew
2/18/2022 08:20:48 am

Jesus wept! Doesn't sound like the sort of film you should be watching just coming out of Pandemic restrictions...

Reply
Adrian Baldwin link
2/23/2022 09:42:43 am

Well Andrew, I guess if anyone was miserable and lonely at home during the lockdown/s, they could watch Nomadland and think themselves fortunate that they still had a home to live in instead of a van. A lockdown silver lining of sorts perhaps? Adrian

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Adrian Baldwin

    Blogging for more than a decade



    Archives

    February 2025
    January 2025
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    February 2024
    September 2023
    August 2023
    June 2023
    December 2022
    July 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    May 2021
    October 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    March 2020
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.