As busy I get from time to time, I find that I can't see every movie under the sun, leaving my friends and colleagues to fill in the blanks for me. As poetically as I think I wax about movies on this website as a wannabe critic, there are other experts out there. Sometimes, it inspires me to see the movie too and get back to being my circle's go-to movie guy. Sometimes, they save me $9 and you 800+ words of blathering. In a new review series, I'm opening my site to friend submissions for guest movie reviews.
TODAY’S CRITIC: Lafronda Stumn
Lafronda Stumn is a student at Madisonville Community College and intends to graduate with an Associate's degree in Associate of the Arts. She plans on earning a Bachelors Degree in Motion Picture Studies and English at Wright State University. Her favorite Directors are Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, and Spike Lee, and her favorite actors are Al Pacino, Denzel Washington, Meryl Streep, and Halle Berry. Lafronda contacted this page looking for a place to get published and I enjoy giving people that very kind of opportunity. This is her 33rd guest review for Every Movie Has a Lesson. Welcome as always, Lafronda!
HER REVIEW: Nomadland
Frances McDormand is one of the most beloved actresses performing in movies today. She has delivered virtuoso performances in films such as Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri, Almost Famous, North Country and now her latest film in Nomadland. She plays Fern, a woman who loses everything where the factory that she works at for years closes down. She is also too a widow who spends the rest of the movie working for a limited time on Amazon packaging and various short-term jobs and also to drive across the American West and Midwest living and driving her van.
Fern meets a few friends along her way on her journey. One person is Linda May who contemplates suicide after the plant close and Swankie, another senior citizen who is dying of cancer and wants to die with dignity. There is again a potential lover interest for Fern in Dave (David Strathairn) who works at a fast-food joint and they strike up a friendship. The relationships with these three people are the catalyst for survival and companionship and the affection of the town that she’s live in for so long keeps her going.
However, Fern has a relative who prefers her to come to live with her and her place, after Fern visits them for a time. Dave also reconnects with his long-lost child who has a family and Dave lives with them. Dave asks Fern that Dave’s offspring would welcome Fern if she starts all over with him instead. The movie is about Fern’s decision whether to stick around as a nomad or withdraw into a home with either her relative or Dave and his family.
A few episodes that grab your attention are when Fern meets associates at a hardware store and one of her friends asks if she needs a place to live or anything for them to help Fern. There is an extended scene when all the vagabonds are at a campfire support group. They talk and commiserate. You see genuine people who are actual vagabonds in the film, and they explain why many of them continue to live in the area despite no prospect of a job coming their way. Fern visits a zoo and feeds and alligator. As well, there is a beautiful sequence where Fern lays naked in a lake surrounded by water and mountains that is striking.
The cinematography by Joshua James Edwards is stunning. The schemes of dark purple and blue are breathtaking scenery. The cinematography is the best thing about Nomadland. Frances McDormand is at rock center and gives a performance of quiet inner strength and conviction.
Fern is a stubborn woman and her reason for whether lives as a nomad is at the heart of the movie. Fern contemplates either to stay at the place lived there with her husband for decades or her sister proclaiming if she doesn’t accept her offer, she is too eccentric for her own good.
Director Chole Zhao does an exceptional job of directing. The scenes with other nomads and her passion of driving really come through. The scenery acts as a background of a physical journey of self-discovery. There is a growing, unrequited appreciation for Fern and where she lives and travels to discover new lives. This leads to finding joy and peace that she loves, warts and all.
RATING: *** 1/2
CONCLUSION
Thank you again, Lafronda! You are welcome anytime. Friends, if you see a movie that I don't see and want to be featured on my website, hit up my website's Facebook page and you can be my next GUEST CRITIC!
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