Our regular movie reviewer Shane has had the unenviable task of finding movies to recommend on the subject of older people, housing, or homelessness. Its a tragically overlooked topic, and so he’s had to make some questionable choices – reviewing a cheerleading movie, a sitcom, a kids cartoon, and even a horror movie. But as soon as Shane had gone on long service leave, a movie hit the big screens that takes the topic head on.
Nomadland is a movie that challenges many Hollywood traditions. There are no big name actors, in fact most of the actors are non professional, real life ‘nomads’. It doesn’t glamourise their stories, with superheroes, plot-twists, or period costumes. And most of all, it focusses it attention on a single, older woman, who is homeless and on the road after her husband dies and their mining town is shut down. It is so incredibly rare to see a movie focussed on an everyday older woman, that you might think its because such un ‘unglamourous’ topic just doesn’t sell movie tickets, and like in our society, older women are best left politely overlooked. But Nomadland has exploded that myth, becoming a box-office hit and going on to win the Oscars for Best Picture, Best Actress, and Best Director.
Fern (Frances McDormand) lives in her van. She’s not your average ‘grey nomad’ as she’s very reluctant to leave the town where she’s from. But she’s not unlike many of this generation who are on the road without a place to go home to. Also, like so many older women, she doesn’t see herself as homeless, or needing the support of friends, stating “I’m not homeless, I’m just houseless, its not the same thing right?”
She does meet a community of people who love their life ‘on the road’. She meets and connects with other older people who have left their homes and are in the American desert connecting with nature. She connects with younger itinerants, who are closer to the American tradition of Jack Keroac’s ‘On the Road”. But this movie doesn’t show this lifestyle as a romantic ideal, for older people having to deal with gruelling seasonal factory work, cold, sickness, and poverty and grief.
Its not in any way an idealised portrait of modern America. But it stops just short of making a political point about the society that has pushed its elders to the fringes like this, has mined towns until there is nothing left, and left the natural landscape degraded. At her sister’s family barbecue June is angry at her real estate mogul in-laws, but stops short of making it clear that her lifestyle is not a ‘choice’ but a response to poverty. Instead, the American seasons and movement of nature becomes a metaphor for their nomadic, insecure life of seasonal work on the road.
Its really wonderful to see older people’s lives presented on the big screen in such an honest way, and Frances McDormand certainly deserves the Oscar for her performance. It leaves me feeling that older people, and especially HAAG members, have so many movie-worthy stories to tell.