Back to cinema: Nomadland review – a film that demands to be seen on the big screen
What better way to escape the realities of a worldwide pandemic than a trip to the cinema? It is a cathartic release; a chance to howl with laughter, jump out of your seat in fright and sob yourself senseless.
It’s no surprise, then, that 59 per cent of respondents in the UK have cited the cinema as the out-of-home entertainment activity they have missed the most. Spending the past year indoors on a strict diet of Zoom, Netflix and Amazon Prime has meant cinemagoers have missed the magic of watching a film on the big screen. After all, no device can replace the ritualistic passage of buying a ticket, queuing for popcorn, taking your seat, switching off your phone, engaging in a communal silence and then discussing the mise-en-scène as the credits roll. Going to the cinema to see someone else’s story – however melancholic, comedic or joyful – play out on the wide-scale is a multi-sensory experience that offers its own brand of communality; one we so crave after a year spent apart.
So, when pandemic restrictions finally relaxed, the first thing on the agenda was to book a ticket to the cinema. Our venue of choice was the Electric Cinema in the heart of Notting Hill on Portobello Road. As you arrive, you collect your tickets at an old-fashioned ticket hall before being ushered to a palatial-looking theatre. The cinema is lined with socially distant plush red-velvet sofas, chairs and beds draped by cashmere blankets with ottomans to put your feet up. Expect no cheesy nachos, popcorn, and soda here but a lavish choice of: Moscow Mules, Padron peppers, Negronis, Antipasti, Bloody Marys, Chicken Bites, and – of course – pick ‘n’ mix. It is a lap of luxury so comfortable, it may be a miracle if your eyes stay open beyond the trailers.
The cinema itself – designed by the architect Gerald Seymour Valentin in the Edwardian Baroque style – is one of the oldest working cinemas in Britain. It opened its doors on the 24 February 1910, and was one of the first buildings in Britain to be designed specifically for a motion picture exhibition. The cinema also found itself at the epicentre of both World Wars. In the First World War, an angry mob attacked the Electric after believing its German-born manager signalled Zeppelin raiders from the roof. In the Second World War, despite the Luftwaffe’s night-bombing raids, the cinema was attended by up to 40,000 per week. No war – great nor small – would stop the Electric. In the late 1960s, it finally became the ‘Electric Cinema’ club we know it as today – showing mainly independent and avant-garde films. After closing and reopening throughout the 20th century, the retail entrepreneur Peter Simon restored its Edwardian look before leasing the site to Soho House (hence the lack of popcorn and surplus of Padron peppers).
The antique-looking cinema’s screen is large but expands to be larger than the stage as the film begins. This made it the perfect place for Nomadland – a film that has been praised for its masterful cinematography. Aptly described as a “visual poem”, the Oscar-winning film captures the restlessness felt by older Americans who have found themselves displaced by society. The film is based on Jessica Bruder’s 2017 nonfiction book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, where she investigated the reality of many nomads who were living out on the road in RVs and vans, picking up jobs where they could, and living hand-to-mouth as a result of the 2008 financial collapse.
Director Chloé Zhao created the fictional character of Fern (Frances McDormand) to tell further the story of the invisible casualties of the financial crash and the nightmarish side to the “American Dream.” After McDormand’s stellar performance in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, it came as no surprise that her acting in Nomadland was of the same high calibre. We first encounter Fern when she is living out of her van and working at an Amazon Warehouse in Nevada. Out shopping, she meets a former student who asks her if she is homeless: “No, I’m not homeless. I’m just houseless. Not the same thing, right?”
The 61-year-old widow has recently left her life in Empire, a company-owned mining town that was a casualty of the financial crisis. Fern has sold some of her belongings, kept some in storage and takes to the road in her van to find work. She travels across America, from Nebraska to South Dakota to Arizona; working several jobs and befriending fellow nomads. The film teeters between a vérité documentary and fiction as Zhao got real-life nomads, from Linda May to Swankie and Bob Welles, to play themselves. In casting non-actors, Zhao hones on in the stories of these characters, the bones of their communities and the spaces they choose to occupy. What’s more, McDormand’s performance amongst these non-actors is so convincing; you forget she is a Hollywood A-lister and not a real-life nomad herself.
The greatest strength of the film by far is McDormand’s career-defining performance against the lyrical shots of the American West – from carrying a little camping lamp through the sunset Badlands to bathing like Ophelia in the river. Ludivco Enioudis’s score manages to transcend these scenes, creating magic beyond words.
Nomadland is a melancholic portrait of grief and solitude but also one of individualism. We may be alone, but we are not lonely – a sentiment that will be shared across cinematic audiences after a year of isolation. Nomadland is a slow-moving and soul-stirring film that feels more like a docu-poem than a motion picture; seeing such enrapturing scenes on the big screen makes it all the more poignant. Nomadland deserves to be seen in a cinema, and we should celebrate that this much-missed option is available to us once more.