I finally got around to watching NomadLand today and I was actually kind of blown away. At first I found it to be a bit boring and hard to stay attached but after a while the movie sucked me in and once it did it didn’t let me go.

Nomadland will definitely not be for everyone. It plays primarily in the vein of a documentary rather than a big-budget Oscar-nominated movie, the actors are so believable in this world as Frances McDormand, a nomad who’s traveling around the United States in her van during the Great Recession, perfectly becomes this character who’s down on her luck and is…just living her life.

I love a director who can bring accentuate the natural beauty of a landscape, like David Lean’s incomparable work on Lawrence of Arabia where he managed to turn a desert into the most beautiful region on Earth.

Chloe Zhao takes the landscapes of states like Nevada, South Dakota, California, and Arizona and makes incredible images that’ll just cause you to pause and ponder life. It was as if I was watching a documentary about national parks and RV camping…and I loved it!

But beyond each frame that exuded artistic expression was the story. It was so profound as it delved into the idea of love and death. I’m not ashamed to admit I got teary a few times and I especially got emotional at the end of this movie. Spoiler alert, nothing awful happens but it was still really moving in a poetic sort of way.

Nomadland has been the frontrunner for Best Picture for months now and I see why. It has a beauty and stillness to it that the other movies don’t. And unlike the other films, I feel like I haven’t seen Nomadland before. Meanwhile, nearly everything else felt like another rendition of something I’d seen before.

I’m so excited to see the Oscars in ten days and if Nomadland and Zhao don’t win for Best Picture and Best Director…I’m not going to be pleased.

(By the way, this lady’s directing a Marvel movie! That being The Eternals. Heck yeah!)

I thank you for reading and I hope you have a fantastic day.