Nomadland Movie

[Married2aSwabian]

I could be very, very mistaken, but isn't the main character a professional actress who pretends like she's a van dweller?.. That was the reason I didn't watch the movie after reading the book. To me, that's the worst kind of cosplay - like an economic version of putting on a blackface. It's insulting and demeaning, as if they couldn't find a real person from those real circumstances to follow around.

We’ll, since this was a film and not an actual documentary, they decided to cast an academy award winning actress to play the part of (pretend to be) Fern. The character seemed to be a mash up of all the real-life van-dwellers in the book and film. Maybe they thought non-actors couldn’t carry the film? In fact, the performances from Swankie, Bob Wells and Linda May stole the show. This was one instance where I thought the movie was far better than the book. Francis McDormand’s performance was also fantastic and was in no way demeaning.

[LetsRetireYoung]

Francis McDormand’s performance was also fantastic and was in no way demeaning.

I'm sure the actress herself wasn't demeaning, much like a lot of the actors who wore a black face back in the day were probably very nice people - it's the filmmaker's decision that I object to. Out of all the millions of van dwellers, they couldn't find a single one who would've captured the audience's attention?..

That reminds me of the 2001 movie "Birthday GIrl" with Nicole Kidman. At some point in the movie, two Russian mafia guys show up. They were played by French actors LOL. The producer claimed that they couldn't find any male Russian actors who spoke English. That was the same sort of ridiculous excuse.

I will not give that movie any of my clicks or money, but I strongly suspect that it didn't feature any big disclaimers like "this is a professional actress, not a van dweller; this story is fictitious." Am I right?

[macg]

I have only ever seen the opposite - meaning, when movies are documentaries, it says so on the posters/advertisements. I have not seen nomadland yet, but every poster / ad I've seen about it says "a film by"... So I personally never thought it was a documentary.

[LetsRetireYoung]

I have only ever seen the opposite - meaning, when movies are documentaries, it says so on the posters/advertisements. I have not seen nomadland yet, but every poster / ad I've seen about it says "a film by"... So I personally never thought it was a documentary.

Makes sense - but there's a big difference between implicit and explicit communication. It implicitly tells you that it's fiction because it doesn't say it's a documentary. However, it doesn't explicitly tell you that it's not real, that the lead is a professional actress, that the story is fiction. I haven't gone out of my way to look for average people's reviews, but some folks in my social circle thought it was an actual documentary following an actual van dweller. <_<