This feels like the most American film to come out in a long time. A dazzling and stark travel down the broken road of the American dream. A vision of being squeezed out of the system, of being crowded out around those edges of accepting and paradigm. A brave visionary hike along the path, but with pain, hardship, degradation and loneliness. Zhao again brings us into the sparse and driven world functioning on the brim, a life of passion and pain, but always unique and strained understanding.
McDormand again parks her masterful and authentic van in the preeminent actress camp ground. She is masterful and melts perfectly into the diegetic moments and non-actor realities. She feels completely of a piece and emblazons naturalness for an understated inward stroke through reminiscing and roaming.
Zhao also twists that masterful flag deeper into the earth. She is a masterful filmmaker and moving storyteller, consistently focusing on the tragedy of outsiders. Paired again with her cinematographer from The Rider Joshua James Richards, Zhao and Richards transport us through the ethereal openness of America. They exquisitely capture the ambience of the open & inviting swathes of the country; places of eternal beauty, a pioneering spirit, and a harshness isolated inhospitableness. In truth, this dichotomy is spread out before McDormand’s Fern and the embattled ideal of American life.
Quiet in words, loud in scope and scale. The crush of modern society and the new gig economy juxtaposed with the idyllic & frett freedom of the wayfarer. Both uplifting and disheartening, it is vitally alive, real, and felt.