Michael Ward on Saturday, January 09

THE BEST FILMS OF 2020

2020 Image.jpg

2020 was rough. COVID-19 humbled us and changed us forever. While it seems trivial to bridge a global pandemic to the movies we watch to be entertained and escape from the world for a while - well, that pleasure has likely been altered forever as well. Movie theaters largely shut down in 2020, when it became too dangerous to remain open. While more than 2,000 screens popped open by year’s end, theater chains AMC, Regal, and Cinemark, and thousands of small movie theaters, all suffered mightily.

Premium Video on Demand (PVOD) is now a thing. Streaming platforms are chock full of more new releases than ever before. Warner Bros. is now releasing their entire 2021 slate on to the HBO Max platform the same day they drop into conventional theaters. Wonder Woman 1984, Soul, Trolls World Tour and other films skipped theaters altogether and debuted for audiences in the comfort of their own homes.

Dozens of movies moved their release dates into 2021 and beyond, making it fair to ask just what movies are actually coming and when and where will we be able to see them. To keep track of movies is confusing, of that there is no doubt.

And yet, seemingly more movies were released than ever before. Previous press-only film festivals went virtual to the general public. Makeshift streaming services emerged, known as Virtual Cinemas, where at-home viewing tickets were purchased in the hopes of funding and saving independent movie houses and small theater chains all around the country.

Access to movies has never been easier. Movies are not going anywhere. If anything, we will only have more of them as people use multiple different platforms and streaming services for distribution.

To celebrate the movies of 2020, we had to step out of our comfort zones a bit. We ventured out a bit and sampled some different fare. I, for one, found a lot to enjoy but recognize that with no blockbusters filling multiplexes and big name stars largely pushed aside for smaller, quieter, more intimate movies for the time being - lots of folks feel like there just weren’t any good movies in 2020.

The Top 10 Films of 2020 are presented through the words of the the artists themselves.

Let’s dive in to the best that 2020 has to offer…and stay safe and healthy and take care of each other.

10. TIME
Director: Garrett Bradley
Release Date: October 9, 2020
Where Available: Amazon Prime

The Signature Moment:
After more than 20 years of being apart, a wife and her husband are finally reunited.

Time is unapologetic in its stance that the criminal justice system seeks not to rehabilitate families but drive them apart. Our narrator, Fox Rich, is unrelenting in her push to reunite her family, as her husband, Rob, serves a 60-year prison sentence with no possibility of parole. Under advising of his attorney at the time, Rob refused to take a plea bargain for an armed robbery he and Fox committed. Fox, on the other hand, took the deal and served a little over three years.

With five sons and working tirelessly to support her family for more than 20 years, Fox fights constantly to bring Rob home. Initially, director Garrett Bradley envisioned the Rich story as a short film, but near the end of the process, Fox opened a Pandora’s Box of sorts for Bradley, the filmmaker having earned her trust. Bradley received nearly 20 years of home video footage that Fox and her family had taken, documenting a life’s record and history for Rob’s hopeful return home. With Fox’s blessing, Bradley used the footage to allow her film to reach a staggering level of unanticipated depth, emotion, and power.

(Fox Rich): “I think we concluded a long time ago that we as human beings have to give ourselves rooms to make the not so good choices and still know that we can be okay in knowing that I'm not the worst thing I've ever done. One of the most powerful moments for me was when Rob reminded us of what happened to us. And he says, ‘Baby, we lost our confidence because of the action we had made, but we got to forgive ourselves. We made a bad choice, Fox. We're not bad people.’ And so when you can settle into that, you must, as a formerly incarcerated person, not buy into ‘I'm bad or less than’ because of the labeling of convicted felon because it will really take you down a road. You've got to love yourself enough to forgive yourself so that others you [can] feel like you have earned the forgiveness of others. And that's what Rob and I and our family tried to do - be better than the worst thing that we have done.” - WBUR.org - October 15, 2020

(Director Garrett Bradley (on her process and incorporating Fox Rich’s personal videos into the film)): “I’m not interested in entering somebody’s life and following every moment of their day, then taking that into the editing room and finding a story. I try actually to spend enough time with the person that I can anticipate what their days look like. I can even anticipate, to a certain extent, their lifestyle and physical movement in the room so that my camera just has to be in one place, and everything can unfold in front of it. There’s a certain static stillness and understanding in what’s to be anticipated in our current-day footage. All of that was completely thwarted going through the archives. It was texturally different, tonally different. So, trying to find a way to bring them together became the beginning of Fox and [me] really, truly collaborating with each other across space and time."

9. ONE NIGHT IN MIAMI…
Director: Regina King
Release Date: December 25, 2020
Where Available: Theaters where available; Amazon Prime beginning January 15, 2021

The Signature Moment:
Malcolm X turns his frustrations directly toward Sam Cooke and drops the needle on one of Cooke’s records, forcing the singer to hear his music in an entirely different way.

The premise is a clever one. On February 25, 1964, Cassius Clay (the future Muhammed Ali), Malcolm X, Jim Brown, and Sam Cooke spend an evening together discussing and debating their lives in Malcolm’s motel room after Clay defeats Sonny Liston to become the new heavyweight boxing champion of the world.

Sadly, both Malcolm and Cooke would be dead within one year of Ali’s big win. That sobering truth hangs a pall over the proceedings. There is an urgency pulsing within the film and director Regina King makes Malcolm’s motel room, the site of the get-together, feel both large and small. At times, there feels like ample space for these men to air out grievances, eat some ice cream, and share some laughs. In other moments, the men feel pressed on top of each other, fighting for air, desperate to speak and demanding to be heard.

The men are rivals, we suppose. Malcolm knows the specific impact his friends have made in the world. But in 1964, a world still devastated by racism, segregation, and unspeakable acts of horrific violence against the Black community, Malcolm cannot shed his agitation and pushes his friends to be provocative and radical and make statements on behalf of Black brothers and sisters everywhere.

(director Regina King on her cast): “It was quite fantastic to be the fifth wheel. [The actors] knew the journey we were about to go on, that this was not a time to be doing any impersonations or caricatures. This could've gone south quickly, but they trusted me to guide them, or lure them back, or caution them from going to some places. They listened, understood that the nuanced moments are the ones that capture the audience's hearts and ears.” - Entertainment Weekly, December 2020

8. MINARI
Director: Lee Isaac Chung
Release Date: December 11, 2020; with a re-release scheduled for February 12, 2021.

The Signature Moment:
To help the Yi family adjust to their new Arkansas home, Soon-ja, the family’s grandmother, comes to stay.

Minari is a tender, honest, revealing story of one Korean-American’s family attempts to relocate to a small town in Arkansas and secure the American Dream. And while they may not quite know what that Dream is supposed to look like, patriarch Jacob believes building a sustainable farm is the pathway. Writer/director Lee Isaac Chung’s film is semi-autobiographical, set in the 1980s, and explores a lonely, challenging world through the perspective of multiple characters.

Jacob (Steven Yeun) wrestles with the strain of his decision to uproot everyone while refusing to abandon his ambition. Monica (Ye-ri Han) is a loving mother and wife who begins searching for exit doors with what she sees as a potentially calamitous decision for her family. Chung writes great scenes for young actors Noel Cho, a pre-teen daughter, and Alan S. Kim, the spirited young boy who steals the movie -until- Soon-ja (Youn Yuh-Jung), the family’s grandmother arrives, disrupting everything with her caustic wit, lack of responsibility, and love of professional wrestling and Mountain Dew.

(Chung): “I started off my career thinking that I wanted to make films that aren’t about my life. Something shifted around 2014 around the time my daughter was born. I just wanted to tell a story that encapsulates a lot of things that I grew up with and a lot of things that I was thinking about presently in life as well. (I wrote memories down) from that time of my life, looking at it from the point of view of age my daughter is. So, looking at what was life back when I was in that range of five to seven years old. And a lot of funny things went in there like my dad taking us to this place in the middle of nowhere, plopping us on this land with a trailer home with no steps and him saying ‘this is your new home.’ I felt precious to do this and to have something I can show to my family, both of my parents in which they feel like they were seen and heard. And also, to my daughter, something I can leave behind for her that she can see where we come from.” - Goldderby, November 25, 2020

7. SOUL
Director: Pete Docter
Co-Director: Kemp Powers
Release Date: December 25, 2020
Where Available: Disney+

The Signature Moment:
Excited at the prospects of finally landing a dream gig as a jazz musician, Joe decides to make a call on his cell phone to share his good news.

Though comparisons have been made to Inside Out and Onward, two recent Pixar films that deal with concepts of life and death, Soul is very much its own unique experience. Directed by Pete Docter, and co-directed by Kemp Powers, the film tells the story of Joe, a musician whose lifelong ambition to be a famous jazz performer has come at the expense of a great many things in his life. When a dream opportunity arrives suddenly out of the blue, Joe’s excitement finds him absent-mindedly stepping into an open manhole and landing on the cusp of The Great Beyond.

If this all feels like weighty stuff, under the direction of Pete Docter (Inside Out, Up, Monsters, Inc.), the subject matter is handled in a tender and caring way. Co-directors Docter and Powers underscore the sensitivity required to properly explore the notion of what makes us who we are. Are our personalities predetermined before birth? What control do we have over our actions once we begin to realize our lives as human beings? Themes of responsibility, fighting for our dreams, and maximizing our time while we have it, carry deep and profound resonance. Kids will miss some of the loftier concepts, while laughing at many comedic moments the directors orchestrate exceptionally well.

Soul is yet another amazing highwire act from a studio that is never afraid to facilitate conversations about the human condition through accessible and inviting means.

(Docter): “The afterlife was, especially, like ‘Danger, danger, danger!’ You know, there’s a lot of pitfalls and things that we could have stuck our foot in by accident. [When] we did start the whole process, I think, one of the first things we did was talk to a lot of different religious consultants - pastors, theologians, rabbis … and we just tried to understand from every angle how people across time have understood the soul, and what does it look like. Are there any clues to us in terms of the design that we can use.” - Focus on the Family’s Plugged In, December 22, 2020

(Powers): “The central themes of the film, questions like, ‘What am I meant to do with my life?’ are not something that just Black people are sitting around thinking about. It’s something we’re all thinking about. But you also want to make sure that the world that you’re creating feels like an authentic world, whatever that world may be, so that someone who is of that group - in this case, if you happen to be a Black person from New York - doesn’t bump and say, ‘That is nothing like the world I’ve ever seen.’ You don’t want to take them out of it. And in the best sense, in the perfect world, you want people who are from that group to feel that someone like them had a hand in creating it. And that’s often evident. You can often tell when there’s Black characters but Black people had nothing to do with the creation of those Black characters.” - Slate, December 21, 2020

6. SOUND OF METAL
Director: Darius Marder
Release Date: December 4, 2020
Where Available: Amazon Prime

The Signature Moment:
The morning after his latest gig, Ruben’s cough sounds muffled.

As the drummer of a punk/metal band, Ruben begins to experience intermittent hearing loss following his performances. A recovering addict who has used music to fuel years of sobriety, he learns his condition will only worsen. Relocating into a sober house for the deaf, Ruben’s hearing loss increases as a community attempts to nurture him into accepting the new realities he faces in his life.

Darius Marder’s directorial debut is a rollercoaster of deeply felt highs and lows, powered by Riz Ahmed’s incredible performance. Lest we think this is one actor’s tour de force though…Ahmed may provide the film’s heart and soul but a community of deaf people in a sober house adds layers of emotional connection to Ruben’s journey. His desperation in conquering his hearing loss surprises him, but for us, as viewers, we see the complete journey of a man accepting his fate, but coming to terms with the fact that everything he has known and fought for and against in his life is changing and he is powerless to stop the effects of time.

(Director Darius Marder on bringing the viewer into Ruben’s experiences): “My overriding objective is that the experience is visceral. I had custom earpieces designed that blocked sound and emitted a whole range of sounds, so every stage of hearing loss is literally happening to him. The first time Riz put them in and the audiologist put the sounds on, tears came to Riz’s eyes because you lose more than just a sense, you lose your equilibrium, you lose control. You could see the physical change come over him. We shot chronologically so his hearing loss progressed in order. I could control this mechanism: first, it was a ringing, then a white noise and Riz couldn’t hear his own voice.

It had to feel natural and be immersive but also watchable. It couldn’t be jarring. The dance of the visuals and sound are so complicated. We had to plan beforehand the perspective out for every shot - whether you’d be in his head with his sounds or out wide for omniscient sound. If you overplay being in his head, it’s too much, but we had to figure out what we could get away with. You could never do all that if you didn’t shoot it the right way.” - The Orange County Register, November 20, 2020

5. COLLECTIVE
Director: Alexander Nanau
Release Date: November 20, 2020
Where Available:

The Signature Moment:
As the band Goodbye to Gravity perform in a packed Romanian nightclub, the band’s pyrotechnics display starts a fire.

A Romanian documentary about a tragic nightclub fire in 2015 is not something I anticipated would provide the framework for the best documentary of 2020. Collective, however, is no normal story. With as many twists and turns as a scripted thriller, the film first discusses the lives lost and forever altered by the fire, but also brings to light evidence of medical malpractice and neglect. This neglect led to a spike in deaths among those who initially survived the fire, further raising questions on the practices and protocols within the Romanian healthcare system.

But there’s more: A mysterious death occurs. A sports reporter leads the charge on exposing the malfeasance, resulting in significant consequences within the Romanian government. As civilians learn the realities surrounding the professionals and elected officials they are asked to trust, Collective morphs into a film which reaches beyond its country of origin. Collective becomes a story about the collective trust we place in the institutions designed to protect us, and the power of a free press to inform its citizenry of any and all wrongdoing.

Collective leaves an unsettling feeling in your gut, but this is an exceptional emotional journey. And all of what that fire meant and brought to the surface feels, at once, necessary, immense, and daunting. Death and hope co-exist. Reformation and resignment walk side by side. Tragedy and anger are uncomfortably nestled in together. As good as any film released in 2020, Collective captures who we are.

(Director Alexander Nanau on journalist Cătălin Tolontan): “In the aftermath of the fire, which was a national tragedy, the whole press somehow failed because the authorities used this trauma to manipulate [the public], saying ‘Our health system is the best. We’re going to handle it. We’re on top of it. We can rescue all the burn patients.’ We understood later that they could not – there were not enough burn units in Romania to do that, and Tolontan and his team were actually the only ones after three days who said, ‘No, no, no, wait a minute. There’s something very fishy.’ They started to uncover huge lies. The fire department said they didn’t know the club existed when in fact they authorized it - he exposed that. And then there was a newly opened burn unit in Romania and they said the burn victims are getting surgery there, but he found out the burn unit closed and it was only inaugurated several months earlier to justify all the investments the hospital manager made there to get his bribe. We understood, ‘Okay, he’s going after the health care system,’ and that led us to get in contact with them because before that, he was known as the most ardent investigative journalist in Romania, but he was investigating corruption in the sports world."

I can only watch it from the side, in a way honored and humbled that our team managed to make a film that hits such a core thing about our world today and from now [the film] has its own life. We just have done our job and now we watch it, but it’s great that people are connecting with it and it inspires people. After we released it in Romania, the number of whistleblowers journalists [started hearing from] every day got 10 times higher.” - The Moveable Fest, November 20, 2020

4. HAMILTON: AN AMERICAN MUSICAL
Director: Thomas Kail
Release Date: July 3, 2020
Where Available: Disney+

The Signature Moment:
Stepping out of the shadows, a young, idealistic soldier announces to the world:

“Alexander Hamilton/My name is Alexander Hamilton/And there’s a million things I haven’t done/But just you wait, just you wait…”

Hamilton arrived as a film in troubling and divisive times. Though it opened on Broadway in August 2015, July 2020 saw Hamilton as timely as ever, with our world torn apart by a fractured political discourse. Race and racial inequity were and remain at the forefront of our collective conversations. President Trump held approval ratings below 40%, and at the time the film premiered on Disney+, just 24% of Americans believed the country is on the right track.

Writer and composer Lin-Manuel Miranda takes us into a time of war, political persuasion, and a fight for independence with Hamilton. The founding fathers of Washington, Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton, and others had no true idea of how America would look as they worked to form our nation’s first government institutions. We are no different today. We are at war, culturally, as a nation. Political persuasion and influence is more deep-seeded than ever before. Persons of color are fighting for an independence from 400-plus years of oppression, systemic racism, and scapegoat-driven blame that has defined the non-white experience in this country for centuries. Hamilton is arguably more relevant now than it was upon its debut.

Driving the themes and narratives home emphatically are an ensemble imbued with flawless chemistry, who leap off the stage with enthusiasm and power. In casting members of the Black, Latinx, and Asian communities as iconic historical (i.e. white) figures, Miranda reminds us that we are all one people. And while that symbolism may feel simplistic or heavy-handed to some, the passion, and explosive emotions these actors generate speak far beyond Miranda’s composition book. Hamilton truly is one of those rare pop culture-tilting moments that come few to a generation.

(Miranda): “When you write a musical that brushes against sort of the origins of this country, it's always going to be relevant. The fights we had at the [country's] origin are the fights we're still having. I've always said that slavery is the original sin of this country. [Slavery] is in the third line of our show. It's a system in which every character in our show is complicit in some way or another. Hamilton - although he voiced anti-slavery beliefs - remained complicit in the system ... He didn't really do much about it after that. None of them did. None of them did enough. In the Heights (Miranda’s 2008 Tony Award-winning musical) really came out of a result of seeing [and] writing what I saw as missing in the musical theater canon for Latinos. And so every time I write a piece of theater, I'm trying to get us on the board. And that continued with Hamilton, of, how can we write the parts that I didn't see existing?"

“I am not interested in statues. I am not interested in how they (the Founding Fathers) look on our money. I was picturing Hamilton as a hip-hop artist. And, as a result, as I am reading Ron’s book (Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow), my brain is mining it for who are the hip-hop and R&B voices that can tell these strands of the story. I think it’s incredible meaningful to then populate our live show with Black and Brown artists. Hip-hop is a Black artform, it was created by Blacks and Latinos in the South Bronx in the ‘70s and Hamilton is a love letter to that artform, just as much as it is a love letter to musical theatre. It’s our country too.” - NPR’s Fresh Air, via Broadway World - June 30, 2020

3. NEVER RARELY SOMETIMES ALWAYS
Director: Eliza Hittman
Release Date: March 13, 2020
Where Available: HBO Max and HBO On Demand

The Signature Moment:
After seeking help from a local crisis pregnancy center, a social worker sits a teenage girl down to watch a video.

Abortion is never easy to discuss, harder to debate, and polarizes people to opposite corners in most conversations on the topic. It is as inflexible a political issue as we have in this country; even more reason why making a movie like Eliza Hittman’s Never Rarely Sometimes Always feels so profoundly brave and important right now.

Through its use of neorealism, both Sidney Flanigan and Talia Ryder give convincing, haunting performances. Flanigan, in their film debut, offers a performance wise beyond their years. When Sidney’s character Autumn sits down with a case manager in a New York City clinic, played by real-life clinician Kelly Campbell, the film feels authentic, almost documentary-like. As Autumn is carefully guided through an escalating series of deeply personal questions, she is offered one of four words to use in her response: “Never,” “Rarely,” “Sometimes,” or “Always,”

Hittman’s screenplay is stunning in its precision. In that sequence with the clinician, not only do we understand why Autumn is in New York City, but we also have a deeper understanding why this is necessary for her. Whether you agree or not with the decisions being made in the story, one cannot help but feel empathy for Autumn. Flanigan’s performance is raw, honest, and truly unforgettable.

This is an intense film, but a compassionate one. At times, the journey feels fraught with peril and yet, Autumn’s cautiousness never gets in the way of the confidence and strength in her choice and determination to fight for that choice.

(Hittman): “It’s been a whirlwind and simultaneously a marathon. In coping with the open-endedness of everything that’s happening in our world, I think it’s good that the film is out there. And I think that obviously we’re in a very vulnerable moment not just in terms of the (COVID-19) virus but in terms of women’s reproductive rights. I hope the film, what it’s about, reaches people. Potentially reaches vulnerable women who can’t get access to birth control and can’t get access to their reproductive rights. It’s a journey that many women take and are forced to take and would never speak about. So, I do think that the film does open up a conversation.” - The Reel Podcast, via Los Angeles Times - April 17, 2020

(Flanigan): “I got the part and then things happened, and started real quick. It was a very quick film. It was a 27-day shoot. We had two days of rehearsal. Everything was so fast. And also not having been an actor in previous life, I just didn't have a conventional process. So I tried my best as a musician. I feel like I already have to find a certain emotional headspace in order to deliver a performance pertaining to each song and you take on a persona on stage. So I'd try my best to transfer that over to acting. I just really hope that it gives them a realistic glimpse into what the [abortion] experience can be like and the woman's perspective of what the world is like with the hostility that there is from other men. And that it gives people a real look and so that they can maybe empathize and put themselves in other people's shoes.” - Harper’s Bazaar, April 3, 2020

2. PROMISING YOUNG WOMAN
Director: Emerald Fennell
Release Date: December 25, 2020
Where Available: Theaters; available through VOD, beginning January 15, 2021

The Signature Moment:
Dropping the appearance of perceived inebriation, a woman asks the man she’s with, “What are you doing?”

Leading a double life, Cassie (Carey Mulligan) is a 30-year-old barista who goes out to nightclubs on weekends, gets drunk, and goes home with a different guy each night. Things are not quite as they appear to be, however, and Cassie’s actions are driven by events from a past she simply cannot allow herself to leave behind.

A movie that will divide audiences with its very direct and pointed commentaries on women, their power and agency, their sexuality, rape culture, sexual assault trauma, the motivations of men, toxic masculinity, and the actions of men when challenged in the presence of strong females, Promising Young Woman dares you to hate it. Dares you to be mad. Dares you to dislike its main character. Then it lights a cigarette, draws a wicked smile, and leaves you to process and consider everything you have just witnessed, as a number of characters sit in disbelief over a reckoning they never anticipated.

Writer/director Emerald Fennell, who cut her teeth as a writer and showrunner on the series “Killing Eve,” holds nothing back in letting us understand what Cassie’s motivations are in the opening moments. Rather than shine a spotlight on her actions as if to exploit her decisions, we embed with her and get to know Cassie through a series of boozy interactions in and outside of the clubs she frequents, and with customers at the local coffee house where she works and banters with manager and best friend Gail (Laverne Cox).

The film is messy and unkempt in one moment, polished and perfect in the next. In exchanging drinks, one-liners, concocting schemes, sending perfectly timed texts, or letting down her guard for a rare moment, Mulligan’s enigmatic personality is balanced wonderfully within subjects and themes bigger than merely one character or one performance. Promising Young Woman is a force of a movie; fearless in its commentary, blistering in its touch and a film we will be talking about for a long time to come.

(Fennell): “I have always been quite interested in morality tales. In terms of the way it was shot, there are lots of parts of it almost touching on Greek tragedy — Cassie as the avenging angel who comes and offers redemption or punishment. And it’s ultimately, for me, a film about forgiveness, but that people only get forgiveness if they admit wrongdoing. She’s called Cassandra as a kind of nod to the original Cassandra.

So the whole purpose of the movie is to say, look at these two paths in front of this promising young woman. One is just skipping through daisies and delicious, beautiful candy land. And one is hard and lonely and bleak. Who chooses the hard road? It’s a horrible road to choose. And isn’t it funny how frightening a character becomes — particularly a woman becomes — when they say, ‘Actually, I’m right. And so I’m going to keep going. Even when everyone else is bored. And even when everyone else is furious, I’m going to keep going.’

And that, without Carey, was impossible. Because Carey is so exceptionally gifted, it was only her who could have given this character that in my mind was, as you say, this kind of an allegorical person — to make it completely and utterly real.” - Variety, December 2020

1. NOMADLAND
Director: Chloé Zhao
Release Date: December 4, 2020
Where Available: After a one-week virtual cinema release in December 2020; the film will be re-released on February 12, 2021

The Signature Moment:
Fern, in need of work and tired of isolation, agrees to travel to Arizona where she finds community for the first time in years.

There is beauty found within every frame of Chloé Zhao’s extraordinary Nomadland, the third feature from the accomplished and acclaimed writer/director. Sometimes the beauty is shown in a smile. Sometimes it is revealed in confession and vulnerability. In other moments, we find it in the gorgeous, breathtaking cinematography of Zhao’s collaborator, Joshua James Richards. These components and more make for a raw, real, and powerful viewing experience.

Set in the early 2010’s, Frances McDormand, every bit as Oscar-worthy as she has ever been, portrays Fern, a former teacher living a nomadic existence after the recent economic recession. She resides in her van and when an old friend encounters her at a store, in an early scene, she tells a former student of hers, “I’m not homeless, I’m houseless. There’s a difference.”

A community of nomads will soon envelope Fern. Zhao, who wrote the screenplay based on Jessica Bruder’s acclaimed book of the same name, holds these seemingly wayward souls in touching reverence. McDormand stars alongside non-professional actors and strikes an immediate kinship with friends like Linda (Linda May), who works with her at a campground, and Swankie, a woman at peace with her life while managing a pesky broken arm.

Zhao frames the first half of her film almost as a documentary. And Richards frames these moments against a rolling landscape of the Far West, with a grounded, respectful, but roaming eye.

In lesser hands, it would be easy to shove the idea of Nomadland to the fringe of our thinking and turn up the heat in our 2,000 square foot homes, while grabbing a blanket and surfing the internet on our smartphones. Zhao simply embeds, embraces, and invites us to walk this journey.

And perhaps most affecting of all is how Zhao captures intimate, small moments which feel like everything. Floating on your back in a river, with not a soul around. Listening to a man share what he has learned in life after losing his 28-year-old son. The simplicity of seeing birds fly above you. The power of stepping into the memories of the past and letting them wash over you one more time, as you contemplate letting them go to better inform your future.

In the days since first watching it, I am struck by how much I am still thinking about the individuals Zhao brings before us and McDormand’s steely, yet vulnerable resolve. There is the nagging realization I cannot shake that we take for granted the ability to learn from one another and are so quick to dismiss those opportunities when they seem challenging or different than what we define as “normal.”

A powerful testament to the times we live in, Nomadland is a beautiful, unforgettable film, worthy of any and all praise, and a masterclass in storytelling by the inimitable Chloé Zhao.

(Zhao): “The world is trying to divide us. In the past several months, we’ve all gone through a version of what Fern has felt - this feeling of great loss to a life that you used to have. It’s just this void you feel, the need to go back to normal, which leads to acceptance and how you can grow to ultimately feel OK with your place in the world. That’s what a lot of people need right now.

Everything happened very quickly because of what we wanted to capture, the seasons, and the scale of landscapes we were trying to get in the American west when it was actually doable. We went from high desert to low desert to the plains to the ocean. I tried to focus on the human experience and things that I feel go beyond political statements to be more universal - the loss of a loved one, searching for home. I keep thinking about my family back in China - how would they feel about a cowboy in South Dakota, or a woman in her 60s living in America? If I make it too specific to any issues, I know it’s going to create a barrier. They’d go, ‘That’s their problem.’” - Indiewire, September 8, 2020