Nomadland is dripping with privilege, even if it's served in sweeping landscapes...

Chloe Zhao’s, Nomadland is making waves in Hollywood and her presence among the Academy nominees is important and to be celebrated, but this film is ripe with privilege and no amount of sweeping landscapes or France McDormand being, well, Frances McDormand is going to make it any less for me.

Nomadland follows the story of Fern as she struggles with grief and loss. Grieving the death of her husband, the stability of his employment, and the gypsum plant that sustained their town and provided their home, Fern is forced to move and makes a new life on the road in a converted van. As she refers to herself as "houseless" she finds a community with a band of like-minded individuals who choose to live a nomadic life working circuit jobs and living simply as a result of various personal circumstances, income loss, or adventure. And there’s the rub.

White people choosing to live off the grid and suffering income disparity is not what I’m against here. Making this a film that celebrates working circuit work and the community that is made in this kind of life, novel, is. This is the story that has been told and is a lived experience of migrant farmworkers. Following the circuit of work is something that isn’t a choice for many LatinX people in this country and their contribution is the life force of more than our produce markets.

There are so many other great films that have captured this exact snippet of Americana.

The documentaries, East of Salinas and The Harvest show us that this migrant life is not just for the tethered, widowed, older woman. Migrant circuit work is real and grueling and also being done in this country by children. In fictionalized stories like El Norte and A Day Without a Mexican we see that more than circuit work, most of the fabric of society is being held together with the work done by LatinX people filling these spaces.

Zhao does an amazing job of capturing the sentiment of the “white heartbreak of America” here. When the plant closes down and the healthcare is gone, the town dries up, the people are left behind by the corporate world. Luckily, Fern can find some solace in her first community, the other seasonal workers at Amazon. Wait- what? Yes, this film actually makes Amazon look like a great place to work and as part of the solution of big business leaving behind poor American white folks...hmmm. Fern can’t wait until she can get that yearly Amazon contract with the full hookups, laundry facilities, community kitchens, and they even show all of the employees eating together at lunch tables without a scary stopwatch insight. In this Amazon plant, the employees actually get to eat, take breaks, and use the bathroom. Based on how much has been reported on Amazon’s treatment of its workers and the inhumane practices of workplace intimidation, not to mention the decimation of local economies, these scenes are not only unbelievable, they’re completely tone-deaf.

Nomadland is also manipulative in its treatment of its subjects. I say subjects because outside of Frances McDormand and David Strathairn the characters in Nomadland are not actors at all. They are the actual people who chose this way of life. This is either really a cheap way to make a theatrical film or the wrong way to make a documentary. Zhao and producers make a clear choice here to NOT hire actors who are out of work. When you have the opportunity to hire skilled workers but choose to hire "regular people" about a movie that talks about people losing jobs...this says something about your message toward your industry, "you're not needed and we can outsource you." While the 'regular people' were compensated, they only received the minimum union rate for an actor while filming. Looks like the producers took some notes from Bezos there...

It's been said that Nomadland is a love letter to the wide-open spaces of America and that Chloe Zhao brought us outside in a time when we were stuck in our homes. It is true that the scenery is beautiful and the cinematography is grand, but great movies are not made of sprawling landscapes alone. Great movies have messages and this one's message is very clear. White people can pick up and leave their environments of poverty and unemployment. They can choose "life on the road". They can just find another place, another community, and another friendly worksite willing to give them a chance. You can even find your bliss in a bucket toilet in the back of a converted van or an Amazon seasonal gig. Must be nice...

And there's the opinion you didn't ask for...xo Kristi