Enslaved by the Pursuit of Happiness: Review of Nomadland

Review of Nomadland

“No one I’ve ever known in this world is more hostile than a pacifist on a rampage.”

• Alan Watts

“For I felt rich, and I tried to make them see, that one is only poor, only if they choose to be.”

- Dolly Parton, Coat of Many Colors

“I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.”

― Robert Frost

“The quality of owning freezes you forever in “I,” and cuts you off forever from the “we.” ”

― John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland is a portrait of American rural homelessness based on a non-fiction book by journalist Jessica Bruder. These are two people who come from elite backgrounds and have chosen to render the lives of the downtrodden, specifically the victims of the 2008 economic downturn. When tackling difficult material on poverty and class it bears mentioning the backgrounds of the artists. This is not to disparage their fine work but rather to inoculate against criticism that it is merely a simulacrum of social justice commentary. Perhaps the finest writing/photography of American dustbowl refugees, And Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, was created by two equally privileged artists who shared similarly elite educational backgrounds. Zhao and Bruder might not be vulnerable to the same strife, but their work strikes a nerve for all the right reasons. The stock market booms and the US press is filled with stories Elon Musk launching his sports car into outer space and dreaming of colonizing Mars. Meanwhile, back on earth, more and more Americans are being forced into subsistence living.

Hard-work and honesty are supposed to be the ticket to security in the autumn of life in the land of free and home of the brave. Instead we see dispossessed middle-aged and elderly wanderers roaming from job to job in broken-down RVs. The protagonist, Fern (Frances McDormand), maintains a fearsome stiff-upper-lip, while always being one flat tire or bad flu away from utter devastation. The most terrifying aspect of Fern’s journey is the lack of complete economic or natural collapse in the creation of her Okie-like refugee status. She and her tribe work hard and play by the rules… to a fault. They are too sick, overwhelmed and desperate to mount any opposition to their inhumane treatment. Only once does Fern’s contempt for the ruling class show through. She, begrudgingly seeks help from her sister, a successful white collar worker with a comfortable house. Her brother-in-law, in the midst of a discussion about real-estate purchases, chides Fern for her peripatetic lifestyle. The answer is swift and silences the cordial conversation, “YOU THINK I HAD A CHOICE?!”

Fern is referring to the costly care for her deceased husband combined with the closing of the town factory, where she and her spouse worked. The devastation was so great that the Federal Post Office, seeing the decline in population, cancelled the zip code. Fern’s sister at one point tries to bolster her sibling’s standing by comparing her to the original American pioneers. There is a parallel, but not in the spirit of her sister’s compliment. Her life is closer to the cannibalism of the Donner party, rather than the “can-do” optimism of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House on the Prairie. Nomadland is scathing in its assessment of contemporary social safety-nets but it is more than a political polemic. This film is about the strange irony of American individualism. The battle for freedom becomes enslavement to a righteous cause.

Fern has little expectation of those in authority and she is seldom disappointed. The manager at the trailer park casually says there is no record of her reservation. After driving for days and facing the prospect of no place to stay, she faintly asks to check list of potential Amazon employees. The manager breezily discovers she does have a right to stay. There is no regard for her plight, merely clerical paperwork. Fern expects disinterest and is embarrassed by overt offers of charity. She encounters some of her former neighbors in a department store, a mother and her daughters. She is queried about her homelessness and dismisses an offer to stay in their garage. The scene also reveals Fern’s former role as a mentor. One of the children recites a Shakespeare passage she learned under her tutelage. Interestingly an encounter with another wayward youth inspires Fern, again, to reference the Bard. Despite not having any children Fern is a caring, parental figure. She even attempts healing within a family. When an adult son visits his father, who is working as a short order cook, she says, “your father makes a great burger.” The coded message is that the young man’s father, although facing difficult circumstances, means the best and has talent. The son is less convinced: “The burger’s okay.”.

Fern’s heartfelt caring has its limits. A lesser filmmaker and storyteller would make Fern’s journey more palatable by introducing a “buddy” or companion. In the early moments a dog suddenly appears at her doorstep wearing a leash but having no guardian. Fern discovers from the trailer park manager the pet’s backstory. His guardian, an old man, had taken ill. His daughter had no ability or desire to tend for a dog. The manager and Fern agree it is a wonderful, sweet pet. It ends up being tied to the front porch of the office. This is a harbinger for the larger “potential” romance that never blossoms. Fern is courted by a good-looking, appropriately aged man who seems the platonic ideal of a companion. She even agrees to stay with his solidly middle class family for a Thanksgiving meal. But it ends with the inevitable French leave. Prior to her exit she chides her companion for abandoning his RV. In her eyes he is no longer is own man. Fern does not rely on the kindness of strangers, or friends. The moments after her departure Fern reenacts the touchstone of the romantic sublime by standing on a cliff and watching the frothing Pacific waves crash against immutable boulders. There is, however, some room for companionship.

Fern extends herself by “joining” a group that has a credo about living as independents. This invitation is extended by an elderly co-worker who had fought suicide, triggered by her impoverishment. The leader of this band of outcasts is a kindly patriarch who offers general advise on living with few resources. His carefully parsed wisdom comes from being an excellent listener. It is a mark of his trusting nature that he is only outsider with whom Fern shares her story. He reveals the journey started with the suicide of a beloved son. Suddenly the formidable man with the answers becomes another hurt soul searching for solace. Nomadland is filled with these unforeseen revelations.

The woman with the pirate flag draped on her RV is not a stern scold, despite the initial encounters. She answers Fern’s pleas for help with a bitting lecture preparedness. This is followed by demands for work-in-kind. In reality she is a vulnerable, generous soul with strong convictions about the divinity of nature. She describes a transcendent moment in the wilderness when she encountered a flock of birds over the water. She knows why she is alive despite her terminal illness. She will live her death as she has lived her life: on her own terms. Transience, however, is the price of transcendence. After her passing she is memorialized with a wonderful bonfire. But how many end up in potter’s fields after being discovered alone in the wilderness? Although the gatherings are heartfelt there is a distinct lack of cohesiveness over the long haul. The bulk of life is spent in the in-between of travel and finding work. It echoes the refrain of the Woody Guthrie refugee hymn: so long, it’s been good to know you. Although the patriarch of the Nomads softens the finality by saying: see you down the road.

Nomandland shares the credo of American-style independence with Into The Wild. A suburban-raised young man abandons civilization for the Alaskan wilderness. Determination is no match for lacking true indigenous knowledge of living off the land. His haunting death is echoed in the closing moments of this film in which Fern metaphorically goes off the ranch. In the opening sequences she secures a storage locker with her former home’s belongings. The closing is her realization there is no need for the locker. She will briefly return to her beloved shelter. But the trailer itself is merely a stepping-stone to the purple mountain majesty outside her fence. This is an American parable that rebukes the Pilgrim’s “city on a hill.” Fern is, literally, running for the hills. She has been brutalized by an inhuman system that made a mockery of her dedication to community and family. She spent a lifetime paying her dues and her reward is a wandering journey on the precipice. She is embittered, but accepting of her plight.

One of the peculiar aspects of American poverty is a blindness about social stagnation. All strata of society share the pernicious belief that success is born of merit without regard for other factors. Those to who question this dogma are faced with unbridled hatred. Laura Ingalls Wilder’s daughter, a key creative force in the Little House on the Prairie books, prayed for the assassination of the President of her time, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. In her mind he was a dictator who threatened the founding doctrine of American civilization: rewards are born of hard work. She felt his social programs were merely bribes to shore up his dictatorship. One might view Fern’s distain for her hosts coming from the same misguided belief. Their generosity morphs into a weapon that undermines her lifework of being proud and self reliant. Fern is a modern day Transcendentalist, the 19th American movement that wrote the book on self-reliance and spiritual communion with nature. The important distinction, however, is her searing mistrust of mankind. The Transcendentalists believed institutions were corrupt but people were essentially good. Fern sees the enemy in everyone, except her transient tribe.

Zhoa’s film has some minor blemishes. David Strathairn seemed apart. It is as if Laurence Olivier suddenly joined the non-professional cast of the The Bicycle Thief. Francis McDormand manages to thread the needle of being a true thespian amongst those playing themselves. In addition the screenplay walks on eggshells in protecting the sanctity of the outcasts. There is a strange absence of behavior and actions that would draw frowns from a general audience. These are decent people… to a fault. There is no overt substance abuse, racism or criminality. It is as if, in order to safeguard sympathy for their plight, the writer and director chose to ignore traits that are abundant in the general population. There is an artistic price paid to avoid an American audience finding specious reasons to blame the victim. Fern’s milieu has a monk-like saintliness peppered by generosity, altruism and suffering. There are passing moments that depart from the grind of goodness, but they are crowded out by the hardship. The artistic choices are sometimes impediments to fully connecting with the characters. Perhaps the director might have included even more of the quiet moments of the characters bonding with landscape. Even the grimness of the factories are softened by the dawn light, which exposes the distant fields and mountains. It is not surprising Zhoa chooses as the denouement, the eternal escape in to the wild. The audience, however, is still huddled in the unkindness of civilization. As the number of Americans surge in adopting the wandering-nomad lifestyle, many municipalities are enacting laws that forbid parking. Life is becoming even more arduous for those least able to cope. There will be no rest for the oppressed.

Nomadland is the counter-argument to the bromide that the bounty of our country is open to everyone who applies themselves. Fern, a firm believer in the Puritan work ethic, is seen furtively looking over her shoulder while she defecates on an open field on a deserted highway. She is journeying between part-time gigs. The mood is often stark but there are those precious moments of repose. In one sequence she quietly drives a road in the wilderness following a lone grazing buffalo.The metaphorical great great great great granddaughter of the Europeans colonizers is reenacting the ghostly ritual of eons of indigenous peoples. The thundering herds are now diminished. The RV is a pale stand-in for the bare-back native American riders of yore. Fern is hunting in her own way. She has her small traditions complete with trinkets from the past. Only she knows their meaning. There is no one left. She shares a bond with “Ishi,” the last surviving member of the the indigenous Californias. He was found alone, starving and wandering in early part of the 20th century. An anthropologist gave him the moniker as it means “man” in the Yani language. The tribal tradition forbad him from speaking his own name unless he was introduced to the strangers by one of his own. Fern would understand his predicament.

The new colonizer is a behemoth that knows how to divide and conquer via a veneer of liberty and choice. Fern owns her own RV and can travel “freely.” In the end she makes a choice of turning back to the land. Ishi, with a lifetimes worth of preparation, could not survive on his own. The hero of Into The Wild died of starvation in the middle of the woods in an abandoned bus. The odds are not in Fern’s favor. Perhaps Nomadland is a preface to the new “trail of tears.” Maybe, when the time comes, Fern will stand alone in an empty field and paraphrase the Bard: when she shall die, take her and cut her into little stars, and she will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun. No one will hear her words but her journey might inspire us to consider the wisdom of Sirach. It begins by praising famous men, but has an important reminder:

And there are some who have no memorial,

who have perished as though they had not lived;

they have become as though they had not been born,

and so have their children after them.

But these were men of mercy,

whose righteous deeds have not been forgotten;

their prosperity will remain with their descendants,

and their inheritance to their children’s children

• Book of Sirach Chapter 44, Verses 9–11