What is it about the open road that speaks so deeply to so many of us? Is it loneliness? The longing to leave that shitty life you have right now behind you — just pack it all up and go? To be truly free? All alone in the world, and loving it… Maybe it’s all of those things. And it’s very likely that whoever once dreamt of these things probably romanticized them to no end, helped in many ways by the poor man’s substitute for living the actual dream: road movies.
I love road movies. And I particularly love American road movies. Why? Because of the landscapes, of course. Those impossibly vast, wide-open vistas, roads that stretch from nowhere to infinity, with not another human soul in sight. It’s just you, your car, and the wide-open world. True freedom. One of the best road movies I’ve seen in a long time is Nomadland, starring Frances McDormand. She plays Fern, a woman in her late sixties who has lost just about everything a person can lose: her husband, her house, and her entire hometown. She decides to pack it all up and leave. She goes ‘van dwelling’ — living permanently out of mostly small vans, traveling from one camper parking to the next, while looking for work along the way.
I love this movie. It has a very special, calm, melancholic feel to it. There are moments in Nomadland where you forget you’re watching a film. You don’t feel like a viewer. You feel like a bystander — someone who happened to wander past, who lingers just long enough to witness a fragment of someone else’s life. A conversation by a campfire. A man playing a guitar. A woman sharing a memory about her son. There’s no plot pushing things forward, no dramatic arc insisting you feel something. It just happens. And it feels real. Not in the glossy sense of “based on a true story,” but in the deeper sense: the rhythm of real people living real lives, without fanfare or explanation.
And yet, despite all its warmth and humanity, it keeps a certain distance — not a cold or clinical one, but something gentle. Respectful. The camera doesn’t intrude. It doesn’t zoom in on tears or cling to faces. It simply observes, like a quiet presence in the room. It trusts the audience to feel things without being told to. That distance, paradoxically, is what allows the emotion to hit harder — because when it does come, it feels earned and real.
Throughout Nomadland, Fern travels across the American West, passing through barren deserts, snowy mountain passes, and sun-bleached trailer parks. She meets people along the way — many of them real-life nomads playing versions of themselves — and these encounters feel unforced, organic. They tell their stories, not in monologues, but in moments. Conversations by campfires. Quick exchanges in parking lots. Shared silences in wide open spaces.
These aren’t supporting characters. They’re fellow travelers. And their presence adds a layer of truth to the film’s already quiet realism. Fern forms connections, yes — tentative friendships, moments of mutual understanding — but she also keeps a certain distance. She’s not looking to be saved, or even helped. People offer her shelter, comfort, company. She politely declines. She can do this. She’s often alone. Sometimes lonely. But that’s not tragic. It’s simply the way things are. And somehow, it’s okay. She sleeps in her van. Bathes in rivers. Pees by the side of the road. She lets the storm blow through her hair without flinching.
At times, Nomadland feels almost like a documentary — and in many films, that might sound like a critique. But here, it’s the highest compliment. The film captures life so naturally, so unforced, that it often feels like the camera is simply witnessing moments as they happen. It’s not trying to impress you. It’s not trying to sell you anything. It just is. And that quiet honesty becomes its greatest strength. If I had one tiny complaint — and it’s a very minor one — it’s the casting of David Strathairn. He’s wonderful, subtle, and does nothing wrong… and yet, he’s recognizable. In a film that feels so real, so unfiltered, his familiar face is a reminder that this is, after all, still a movie. It’s a small crack in an otherwise flawless illusion.
One of the most quietly powerful details in Nomadland comes at the very end of the film — and I wonder how many people noticed it. Fern returns, one last time, to the now-abandoned house she used to share with her husband. It’s empty. Hollow. Lifeless. As she enters the living room there lies, just behind the front door, a single piece of tumbleweed. Dry, fragile, drifted in from the outside. If anything ever symbolized abandonment, it’s that. Not just a house left behind, but a life. A chapter. A self. Because ultimately, that’s what Nomadland is about. Loss and loneliness, yes. But also the quiet, reluctant discovery that something else might be waiting — not necessarily something better, but something different.
A road that stretches out before you, asking nothing, offering no promises… just open space. And in that space, maybe a kind of peace. A freedom not from responsibility, but from expectation. The film tells this story with remarkable calm. No melodrama. No speeches. Just small moments, human and grounded. It breathes. And of course, there are the landscapes — not just as background, but as characters in their own right. Vast, silent, indifferent. Beautiful. The mood of the film is steeped in melancholy — not sadness, exactly, but something softer. Something nicer, somehow.
Leave a Reply