Like most of you, I’m sure, it’s been nearly a year since I’ve been in a movie theater. Of all the activities I’ve missed most this past year, sitting in a big dark room with strangers ranks near the top. Here’s how I described the experience in a column I wrote many years ago:
Everyone knows why we go to the movies. To escape, right? And sometimes, there’s nothing like a few hours away from reality, bathed in darkness, completely consumed by a story that sweeps us far from our daily routines.
The last movie I watched in a theater was exactly like that. Portrait of a Lady on Fire took viewers to France in the late 18th century, immersing us in a forbidden romance. My act of seeing it in a theater on March 14, 2020, had a hint of danger, too, even with only a handful of people at the Saturday afternoon showing. Two days later, all theaters in Washington state shut down. Some are reopening now, but I’m not especially eager to go—except, perhaps, to a no-concession matinee where people need to stay masked the whole time, and that doesn’t sound like much fun.
Still, there’s a part of me that aches to see a film in a theater. That feeling was reawakened last weekend by Nomadland, a film currently in theaters and on Hulu that is about solitude and self-discovery amid community and hardship. I was captivated by its indelible characters, by its understated music and lovingly photographed scenes of the American West, and by its portrayal of resilience—so much so that I watched it again the next day.
From rom-coms to action epics, films sometimes serve as Rorschach tests, giving us a chance to see aspects of ourselves through the characters on the screen. We needn’t identify with a character to love a film: The weekend before last, I re-watched an old favorite, Harold & Maude. I thoroughly enjoyed it, yet I don’t see myself in either of its main characters. But I see much of myself in Fern, the central character in Nomadland, an uprooted woman in the residual stages of grief, a person near my age who enjoys the company of others yet is prone to wandering away from the pack. For that matter, I see myself in Dave, the other lead role, someone who is more of a people person than Fern.
Nomadland reminds us of what we are missing in 2021, as many of us who live alone mark the first anniversary of our last hugs. The film is a feast of human connection, from haircuts to campfires to stargazing parties, from breakroom conversations to Thanksgiving dinners. It made me deeply miss seeing people in person, but it was comforting to watch the people onscreen casually go about their lives, especially because—with the exception of lead actors Frances McDormand and David Straithairn—people in the film are playing themselves.
That’s yet another remarkable aspect of the film, how it blends real life with reel life. It shows that there is dignity in hard work, that 99 percent of people are essentially decent, and that everyone has a story. You only need to ask—and to listen. Nomadland also serves as a 108-minute meditation on why we decide to keep the things we hang onto, from homes to vehicles and jobs and relationships and stuff, and why we choose to let things go. It’s also about how people and things come back to us.
I could go on and on; Nomadland is a cinematic onion, revealing many layers and asking many questions without resorting to political debate or judgment. In the end, its central question seems to be: What makes a good life? If one version of the good life goes away, do we have the inner fortitude to make another one? Do we greet these changes as obstacles or opportunities? Can a restless and often difficult but ultimately free life be as satisfying as a settled one in a comfortable, well-furnished home? Is there a middle way?
We’re all living with versions of these questions in 2021, no matter what the past year—or decade—has thrown at us. I expect I’ll watch Nomadland many times over the coming years as I live into the answers.
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