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These include white-bearded Bob Wells, the founder of the Rubber Tramp Rendezvous (RTR) – probably the largest gathering of nomads in the world – and the no-nonsense survivor Charlene Swankie, who bustles across the RTR’s campsite with her arm in a sling. But the film folds her in with several of the nomads from Bruder’s book, all playing versions of themselves. Nomadland clears centre stage for an invented heroine: Fern, a widow who takes to the road claiming that she is “not homeless, just houseless”, shuttling from one seasonal gig to the next.

‘They don’t believe the cavalry is coming’. “But it’s more complicated than that.” Frustratingly, I think she may be right. I would file the film as an anti-western, a wholesale repudiation of manifest destiny, the pursuit of happiness, all the Hollywood snake oil we have long been fed. Adapted from Jessica Bruder’s nonfiction bestseller, the film bounces Frances McDormand’s hard-bitten loner through a modern American badland in which the saloon and the sheriff’s office have been replaced by the RV park and the Amazon warehouse. As Nomadland steers its westerly course – from the Baftas in London to the Oscars in Los Angeles – it is living a dream that it knows is a lie.Ĭondé Nast Traveler called it “a love letter to America’s wide open spaces”, which is true up to a point, but this ignores the pathos, poverty and desperation at its core. The road has been cleared, the gold rush is on, but the Hollywood happy ending feels at odds with the film. Shot for $5m and largely featuring amateur actors, it is the little movie that could: this year’s rags-to-riches story, beloved by the critics and odds-setters alike. I t has been a wild ride for Nomadland, Chloé Zhao’s roving portrait of the US’s rootless modern migrants.