Nomadland
Rent/Purchase
A woman in her sixties embarks on a journey through the western United States after losing everything in the Great Recession, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.
What critics thought
Chloé Zhao's film earned near-unanimous acclaim from critics, who consistently praised its quietly accumulative portrait of post-recession drifters and Frances McDormand's performance. The main line of dissent was pointed and substantive: some felt the film romanticizes economic hardship rather than confronting it, treating its subjects' financial precarity as picturesque rather than political.
“Like Zhao's earlier work, Nomadland is an unassuming film, its aptly meandering, unhurried non-narrative layering impressions rather than building a story with the standard markers. But the cumulative effect of its many quiet, seemingly inconsequential encounters and moments of solitary contemplation is a unique portrait of outsider existence.”
David Rooney·The Hollywood Reporter
“director Chloé Zhao works magic with McDormand's face and the real world around it, delivering a profound rumination on the impulse to leave society in the dust.”
Eric Kohn·IndieWire
“It's like discovering a new country, one you may want to visit more than once.”
A.O. Scott·The New York Times
“Zhao has made The Grapes of Wrath without the wrath”
WBUR
Genres
Drama
Cast & Crew
DirectorChloé Zhao
StarringFrances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May, Swankie, Gay DeForest
ComposerLudovico Einaudi
Nomadland
A woman in her sixties embarks on a journey through the western United States after losing everything in the Great Recession, living as a van-dwelling modern-day nomad.
What critics thought
Chloé Zhao's film earned near-unanimous acclaim from critics, who consistently praised its quietly accumulative portrait of post-recession drifters and Frances McDormand's performance. The main line of dissent was pointed and substantive: some felt the film romanticizes economic hardship rather than confronting it, treating its subjects' financial precarity as picturesque rather than political.
“Like Zhao's earlier work, Nomadland is an unassuming film, its aptly meandering, unhurried non-narrative layering impressions rather than building a story with the standard markers. But the cumulative effect of its many quiet, seemingly inconsequential encounters and moments of solitary contemplation is a unique portrait of outsider existence.”
David Rooney·The Hollywood Reporter
“director Chloé Zhao works magic with McDormand's face and the real world around it, delivering a profound rumination on the impulse to leave society in the dust.”
Eric Kohn·IndieWire
“It's like discovering a new country, one you may want to visit more than once.”
A.O. Scott·The New York Times
“Zhao has made The Grapes of Wrath without the wrath”
WBUR
Genres
Drama
Cast & Crew
DirectorChloé Zhao
StarringFrances McDormand, David Strathairn, Linda May, Swankie, Gay DeForest
ComposerLudovico Einaudi
Rent/Purchase