KRR: So, The Breathtaking Beauty That Is 'Nomadland.'

I've been waiting to write this review since my first screening of this film last month. You've been waiting for this film for the last six months. The entire world is waiting to see this film sweep the Oscars. This film needs no introduction: It's Chloé Zhao's Nomadland. The wait is over.

Well actually, wait a minute... I still haven't figured out what to say. 

The last time I had this much trouble talking about a movie after seeing it was the Coens' 2009 dramedy A Serious Man. There was something so inexplicable, so profoundly unique about that film that it left me speechless. I feel very similarly about Nomadland.

Zhao's new film isn't the kind of movie you have to see before you can talk about it. Its existence is rather contrary to that. One sees it in lieu of talking about it. Millions of words have been written about the Great Recession, the collapse of middle-America, the exploitation of the working class by Amazon, the lives of nomads in the American West. Those are topics have been talked about ad nauseum, and they are likely to be talked about for decades to come. There is virtually no chance that anyone can add anything new to those conversations now, in the year of our Lord - 2021. 

A rare beauty.

And yet, Chloé Zhao has brought those topics back into the limelight not by adding to the conversation, but by stripping the discussion away. Nomadland makes no proclamations about any particular issue, no grand statements about economic collapse, or death, or capitalism. Instead, it offers up a palette of feelings. Nomadland is an atmospheric look at a single year for a middle-aged widow who lives and works out of her van in the West of the Great Recession. Besides the award-winning performance from Frances McDormand in the lead role and David Strathairn in a supporting role, the film is populated entirely by real people. Real workers, real campers, real nomads. Because of that, Nomadland feels like an act of humanity. That is, it doesn't feel like a movie. It feels genuinely human, because it is genuinely human. There is no higher compliment than to say that a film perfectly captures the emotional depth of humanity. Nomadland does just that.

I'll keep this short and end here. A review of only a few hundred words is still more than needs to be said about this obvious masterpiece. To be left speechless by Nomadland's suffocating beauty has been one of the most touching experiences of quarantine. I could not recommend this film more highly. 

You may recognize this ridge in the Badlands from the home photo on this very blog.

Nomadland KRR: 9.8/10