McDormand delivers a luminous, understated performance as a woman who refuses to let life knock her down. As she travels, Fern reconnects with nature, delicately highlighted when she tries to sleep under a couple of roofs. As another fictional character, Strathairn is equally natural as the tentative Dave, who may have had enough of this lifestyle. The people around them are fascinating; itinerant people don't go in for chitchat, digging deeply in their interaction, helping and celebrating each other, knowing that there's never a final goodbye.

Living in vans themselves while shooting, the cast and crew capture the expansive Western landscapes with a rare authenticity. While never shying away from hardships, the film finds dignity and liberation in how these people live outside the capitalist machine. Anecdotes these characters recount are compelling, beautiful expressions of what it means to be fully human. All of which gives the film an almost elegiac quality, an obituary for the American Dream perhaps, and a hopeful cry for something even better.

themes, language

16.Oct.20 lff

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