From my first glimpse of the “Nomadland” trailer, I knew that pandemic or not, I would eventually see this movie. For starters, I’ll see anything Frances McDormand is in. The actor is a marvel of nuance. I have loved her work since “Blood Simple.”
Besides, the topic – people imperiled by the Great Recession – is one that I’d written about over and over for MSN Money. I was curious as to whether a director could truly capture that, rather than paper it over with a requisite Hollywood resolution.
Thankfully, director Chloe Zhao didn’t slap on a typical amor vincit omnia verdict – or even a happy ending as such. “Nomadland” represents everyday life for a lot of people, whether they live on the road or not.
Working as many hours as they can get at whatever job will have them. Wondering whether the money will hold out. Hoping no one gets sick. Banding together with others who are living the same kinds of lives, and supporting one another insofar as it’s possible.
The film moves at a measured, almost mournful pace. In a sense, “Nomadland” is an elegy: not for the American Dream as such, but for the notion that any working person can ever truly be safe.
The fact that some real-life nomads play themselves in the movie is a case in point. It’s doubtful any of them ever thought, “Say, you know what would be cool? Losing everything and having to shovel sugar beets for minimum wage while living in a van in my 60s!”
A factory shutdown, a white-collar layoff, the loss of a home, an economic crisis that gutted retirement savings – whatever the catalyst was, it shredded these people’s sense of security along with their safety nets. For Fern (McDormand), it was a case of the recession killing her small Nevada town, right down to its zip code.
It doesn’t take much to join the ranks of the working poor. Some people are just a paycheck or two away from insolvency. And what about life after work? A study from the Pew Research Center study shows that average salaries haven’t gone up by much in the last 40 years. That makes it hard to save for retirement – but it’s rarely possible to live on Social Security alone.
Put another way: I see an awful lot of elderly people working. Not as in “early 60s,” mind you. I’m talking people who could be in their mid-70s or older who are stocking shelves and sweeping up at fast-food restaurants. Maybe some of them are working because they like to work. My guess is that quite a few of them can’t afford to retire.
“Nomadland” in real life
Fern says she’s not homeless. She’s merely “houseless.” This new life gifts her with shimmering landscapes, kindness from fellow travelers and a chance to focus on her life rather than just drift through it. That last is true even though she is technically now a drifter. The space and silence of the road allow her to look inward.
It’s no travelogue, though. Being a nomad brings discomfort and indignity. When she stops for too long, some big dude pounds on the van and barks that she can’t stay there overnight. Lacking a kitchen, Fern eats a lot of sandwiches and canned foods. If she’s not close to a public bathroom, she has to defecate into a bucket that’s mighty close to where she lays her head at night.
Pressed for space, she carries few mementos of her previous life other than family photos, a few crochet supplies, and the dishes her dad bought at yard sales and gave to her as a high-school graduation gift. During a cash crisis, Fern’s frustration is palpable: She has no choice except to borrow from a relative who might very well hold it over her head.
It’s not that she’s unwilling to get a job. She takes seasonal work wherever she can find it. A labor specialist advises that since there aren’t many options for people like her, Fern should just take early retirement.
“I need work. I like work,” she says, with a tight smile that conceals her desperation.
You get the feeling she’s in the same boat with another character in the movie, who’d worked all her life but was due only $550 per month in Social Security. Even though Fern could claim her husband’s Social, she’d have to wait until her full retirement age to get the maximum benefit. If she filed early, her monthly payments would be permanently reduced.
Choosing her own path
One complaint I read about the film is that Fern is willfully homeless. Twice she is offered a place to stay, yet I understand why she declines. In one case it would mean dependence on someone who’s a little angry with her (and whose spouse is insufferable). In the other, it could amount to basing a relationship on shelter.
Besides, Fern is just starting to get a clue about who she is. After all, she left home at 18, married young and always lived in a remote place. She’d defined her entire life through her relationships to others. She’d been a sister, daughter and wife, but she’d never been just Fern.
“My dad used to say what’s remembered, lives. I maybe spent too much of my life just remembering,” she says at one point.
Looking back, that is, rather than looking forward. Or even living in the moment. For the first time in her life, Fern has to let go of what was, and live with what is.
And she has a choice: She can give up and become someone else’s responsibility, or she can eschew security in favor of self-determination. I know which one I’d choose.
Related reading:
- The life I once led
- Wealthy people think you could live on less
- Some people REALLY want to work
- If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich?
- The value of work
Like you, I will see anything with Frances McDormand in it. I think the first time I watched Fargo, my lower jaw sat on my chest the whole time. That was the first time I saw her act and was just blown away. I’m so looking forward to watching her act in Nomadland. I read the book long before it was made into a movie and I can tell you it was eye opening and heart breaking at the same time. Change a few of the decisions I made earlier in my life and I could well be Fern. Let me just say I will never look at Beets or campgrounds the same way again.
If possible, stream or rent the film “Blood Simple” — her first, and also the Coen Brothers’ first. It’s not a horror film, but rather an old-fashioned film noir. Unlike anything I’d ever seen.
And yeah, a lot of us could be Fern. Some of us still dream that we are.
I too read the book a few years ago and was deeply impacted. It helped me more fully commit to frugal living. I have looked at wasted money in my past and wished I had it in the future. Losing a job, a recession, illness, it can happen to any of us. Yes, I have resources so won’t end up homeless but, like
Fern, they come at a cost. Most of us want to maintain our independence and choices. Even if it means living in a different way than others.
We choose to be car free because of the tremendous monetary savings. We rarely eat out, we exercise regularly (biking to work!), and a myriad of other frugal decisions day in and day out that over time have a big impact on our finances. If sh*t hits the fan, we really know how to buckle down and so far, have not needed to live in a van searching for work. But if we needed to, we could. And it wouldn’t be a tsunami of cold water. It wouldn’t be ideal, but we could do it successfully.
I think the movie has hit mainstream America that this DOES happen, and this CAN happen. Not a fluke but a real possibility. Even if you “play by the rules”.
For me, it is a reminder of choices and luck. Some of it is in your choices (frugal living, living below your means, saving regularly), some of it is in your luck. Life is often hard and unfair.
For me, being willing to get my hands dirty and buckle down will serves me more than many may understand. I can only focus on what I can control and that is living frugally, having a good work ethic, and building relationships where we help each other.
Well said!
Thanks Donna. (:
Donna, thanks for this insightful look into the “Nomadland” world. I, too, love Frances McDormand:-)
https://www.thedriftmag.com/the-end-of-the-road/
Another article, well written, about nomadland
The movie is on Hulu, and I watched it with sympathy. However, Fern is fiercely independent and wanted no one to feel sorry for her. The scene that made me reach for my Kleenex was when her van broke down and the garage mechanic told her to junk it, the cost to fix it would be too high. Fern looked at him and said something to the effect that the van was her HOME. She LIVED there. Wow. I wanted to reach through the screen and pull her into my arms. “I have a spare bedroom,” I wanted to say to her.
Nomad life can happen to any of us. At any time. At any place in our lives.
That scene got to me as well. She was already low on funds, and now she had to find a hotel — or a shelter.
If you haven’t read the book, you need to. It is what everyone who got started saving for retirement late or who had to use those funds for other things at some point fears. I still get sick to my stomach remembering reading it and hoping this is not my future. My mother and her husband both took the early social security option and are living to regret it. Through a series of early career choices, my husband had no retirement funds whatsoever when we married and still has minimal funds (although we are working on that). I am praying I can work at my relatively well paying job until at least my full social security age so with that and my (late started) retirement funds I can be more comfortable and don’t have to resort to this kind of life.
I’m on a waiting list at the library.
And taking Social early can be a serious mistake. A friend told me she was taking it at 62 and I tried to explain why she needed to wait; among other things, she had a very checkered work history and wasn’t going to get much to start, so taking it early meant a permanent reduction. She wouldn’t hear of it. I hope she doesn’t end up in dire straits.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/7-reasons-dumb-claim-social-022458660.html
I had to take early retirement because my ex left me. The thing that saved me was my teacher’s pension and the fact that the judge did not like my ex. I got more in the settlement of our property than he did, and he had to pay my lawyer haha.
I put the settlement into funds and have lived frugally. My car bought used has 61,000 miles on it and is economical to run. I watch my pennies (thanks to you, Donna, and the Tightwad Gazette). I live in a small midwestern town with low taxes, a good hospital, a dental clinic, a dollar store, and a passable grocery store.
I live on $12,000 a year and do not feel deprived at all.
However, if I did not have a small pension, I would not make it. The people in Nomadland did not have the resources I do. For that, I am in awe of how they manage.
I took Social Security Retirement early, but I also had access to a retirement/pension fund, and health insurance benefits at the same cost as active employees ($350 / month). Part of my decision making process was examining family history lifelines on both sides of my family. You have to live long enough to be able to collect at that later date. Another deciding factor was the daily commute, that had become 2 hrs each way, almost every day (for not much money). I did a whole lot of planning for several years, in advance, to make sure I could afford it. And even then I questioned my decision, repeatedly. The only problem, which could not have been foreseen, was the prescription coverage we were supposed to have until death, is now being withdrawn from the retirees over 65 and those who are declared disabled by SSA. Medicare D does not cover most of my yearly $16,000 in prescription costs. This is not a typo. My husband incurs another $16,000. I am in a group that still has the prescription coverage due to a lawsuit, so am good for now.
Should probably have said that it’s generally a good idea to wait. There are exceptions, and yours is one.
As we’ve seen recently, pension funds don’t always deliver on their promises. These are nervous times in which we live.
I live in fear that if the previous employer (State of Maryland) is successful in the prescription lawsuit, then the next hit will be the pension fund. And if that goes to The Pension Guarantee Fund, we all know that fund
only covers portions of pensions, and not health insurance coverage previously promised.
I wish that so many people didn’t have to live in fear — that the benefits they were promised (and to which they contributed!) would be there for them no matter what.
I am not going to be able to watch Nomads because I watched the previews, Frances McDormand is far too good, and the problem is far too real. I grew up on the razor edge of poverty. I was on my own at 17 (the parents had fulfilled their job, but after they showed me the door, they wanted to know how much money I would be sending home, because I had worked since I was 15, and they took the check as room and board). One of the very old women I sold groceries to during that time, bought a lot of cat food. We didn’t see her one week, so the manager sent me to her house, around the corner, to see if she was alive. She did answer the door. She didn’t have ANY cats. Not a single one – I asked her. She was eating cat food. The “senior cat food diet” was (and probably still is) a real thing. I’ve never forgotten that wonderful old woman who had very little to live on, and never said a word or asked for help from anyone. I didn’t want to be her. My grandmother was working on her hands and knees scrubbing floors at age 66, as a domestic worker. I didn’t want to be her. * I will spare you my full story, other than to say that I fought tooth and nail to get out of poverty, and try to build a wall so that I would never be there again. I was afraid to marry anyone because you never really know what/who you are marrying. And, in the end, all of the hard work, and working two jobs for decades, did put me in the middle class with an annuity as well as SS when I retired. I did need a degree, and wish I had gotten one early, but that was something no one I knew could mentor me on, they were into submissive women who they felt didn’t need and should not get an education. LOL. I got the degree late, it allowed me to take a job that doubled my salary – and without it, no matter how many decades I had worked two jobs, I would have been at poverty level, at full retirement age. ** So, Nomads is too close to home, and just the previews were enough to seriously depress me. It is a real problem. I believe we are in the beginning of a long term recession, probably an actual economic depression. It is not based on politics, it is world wide, and being frugal will help us survive with what we need, during the very slow recovery. Your column has always provided wisdom on how to do just that – survive on very little. Thank you for your work.
Wow. What a story. I admire your perseverance, and thank you for your kind words.
Appreciate your commenting, and hope you’ll weigh in again on future articles.
“Even though Fern could claim her husband’s Social Security, she’d have to wait until her full retirement age to get the maximum benefit.”
Wouldn’t she need to wait until 70 to get the maximum benefit?
I believe at full retirement age she’d get the full benefit, as opposed to a reduced benefit. But it’s pretty much a continuum in that the longer you put off collecting, until 70, the higher the monthly benefit.
In this case, she’d be getting her own plus a portion of her husband’s, which she’d be eligible for at her own full retirement age. From https://www.ssa.gov/benefits/survivors/ifyou.html
“If you are the widow or widower of a person who worked long enough under Social Security you (can) receive full benefits at full retirement age for survivors or reduced benefits as early as age 60.”
Apparently it’s possible to get reduced benefits at age 60, and then switch to your own benefits later on. But given the character’s spotty employment history, her husband’s benefit would be the one to wait for because it would be bigger.
Social Security is very convoluted. When it comes time for me to apply I’m going to ask three different employees at three different times what I should do, and then I’m going to ask to be shown in the rulebook why.
This article mentions how taking benefits early actually extended life span
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/03/27/how-research-shows-you-can-live-longer-if-you-retire-early.html
Possibly it would, if you have enough money set aside to live on and if that fund can keep up with inflation. If not….
My late mom had to retire at 59 because of her declining health and began her SS benefits at age 62. She died when she was 68, so it was the right decision for her.
Stepdad divorced her when she was in early 50’s. He moved out of the house that they bought together and she made the payments on it for 4 years until it sold. They then split the proceeds. Oh, he also cleaned out the checking/savings accounts when he left. Because the accounts were in both names, his actions were perfectly legal. *sigh* Needless to say, she got screwed financially too late in life to really recover from it. She really needed those monthly payments.
I will be 40 next year and I have been putting money into a 401k since I got my first after college job at 22. Do I still worry about retiring? Yes.
However, I worry more for my best friend who barely gets by and has nothing saved at all. She has no life insurance and is a single mom to a 12 year old with special needs. I’ve helped her on numerous occasions paying her bills for her, giving her money for gas/groceries. It makes me scared as to if she ever would be able to retire… and the reality of it is many people never get to stop working, because they can’t afford not to work… as cost of living in some states- like the northeast is expensive.
I have a couple of friends who have no retirement savings other than their Social Security — and at least one of them is going to be collecting a fairly low amount due to her work history. It’s very worrisome.
You’re a good friend. However, I hope you will remember to put on your own oxygen mask first.