Reeling from the death of her beloved husband and the loss of their Nevada home, Fern (McDormand) lives in a van, travelling from town to town and picking up seasonal work.
There is much of Chloé Zhao’s process present in the adaptation. The film is populated with intimate and compassionate studies of real people playing versions of themselves, such as Fern’s compatriots on the road, Linda, Swankie and Bob, as well as a precious community that has grown out of the ruins of the country’s brutal service economy. Zhao’s regular collaborator, cinematographer Joshua James Richards, exquisitely captures the expansive open landscapes of the Western United States.
Alongside them, McDormand delivers an angular, sympathetic portrait of an older woman choosing a life of relative freedom, whatever the pains and challenges that entails.
Barbican Cinema has been supported by the Culture Recovery Fund for Independent Cinemas in England which is administered by the BFI, as part of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s £1.57bn Culture Recovery Fund supporting arts and cultural organisations in England affected by the impact of Covid-19. #HereForCulture.