By Sal & Rebecca, The Tin Can Travelers – We use affiliate links. When you click an affiliate link, we may receive a small compensation at no cost to you.
There’s a new movie out and it’s creating quite the buzz! It’s called NOMADLAND and has earned an Academy Award nomination for best picture. We watched the movie and enjoyed it very much, but if you ask us whether or not we connected with it, the answer is a resounding “No.” And we’re nomads! I suppose you could say that’s what compelled us to write this post. It isn’t as much about reviewing the film as it is a sense of obligation, if you will, to accurately portray a larger segment of the nomadic community than what’s depicted in the movie. Hence the title, “The Other Nomads.”
The Omitted Ones
While the movie is good and probably deserves an award, we feel it’s an incomplete portrayal of the nomadic lifestyle enjoyed by so many. A huge portion of the nomadic community was completely overlooked in this film while the primary focus was on a smaller, very specific, segment of the population. And even though the characters’ lives in the movie may be exactly what people envision when they think of nomads, the lifestyle, and the people living it, has evolved into so much more in recent years.
Why Do We Care?
As two people part of a massive community often referred to as “Nomads,” we’re very aware of some of the stereotypes frequently associated with it… and this movie feeds right into that! The film is dark, desperate and depressing, and doesn’t represent the majority at all! It certainly doesn’t represent us or anyone we know. And while there are nomads out there struggling to make ends meet, this is true for millions of people living a conventional lifestyle, too. In short, we felt the movie did very little to depict anything other than a drab or bleak lifestyle.
The Movie Through Our Eyes
We found the movie to be very one-sided; mainly depicting a broke woman struggling with the loss of her husband and desperate to find meaning in life now that he’s no longer a part of it. She lives in her van and travels from one work-camping gig to the next while passing up multiple opportunities for a more stable life. And when her van, which doubles as her home, breaks down, she doesn’t have enough money to fix it. In our opinion, she makes one bad decision after another and actually represents the type of person we would discourage from living a nomadic lifestyle.
And while we “get” the main character’s persistent flight from stability is how she’s coping with the loss of her husband, everyone else in the movie seems to be dealing with some sort of trauma as well. By the end, we thought the movie was more about one woman’s plight to crawl out of the darkness than it was about living a nomadic life. The fact that she lived in a van was secondary.
What’s Really Going On In The Nomadic / Full-Time RVing Community
An incredible number of people are finding creative ways to break free from the traditional and dive headfirst into this unconventional nomadic lifestyle that’s gained so much momentum over the last few years. We’re talking about the remote workers, content creators, traveling nurses, retirees, entrepreneurs, freelancers and everyone else that’s makin’ it happen every day. The ones who aren’t willing to wait until they’re sixty or seventy to scratch that nomadic itch. The ones who know they can live freely, but responsibly, right now. Somehow, though, this massive presence of a younger, adventurous, tech savvy and professional generation taking to the road full-time didn’t make the cut in a movie called “NomadLand.” Instead, a group of people seemingly eager to escape society took center stage.
In Closing
We thought the movie was interesting, but we probably wouldn’t watch it again. We just couldn’t relate! The movie did very little, in our opinion, to resonate with anyone in the nomadic community other than those who are struggling financially, battling some sort of inner-demon or searching for the meaning of life. But believe it or not, ninety percent of the nomads we meet on the road are happy people who just love to travel! Can someone please make a movie about that?
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We haven’t seen the movie but that doesn’t sound like the nomad community we know! While I’m sure there are people struggling, most of the people we know like you mentioned just love to travel!
👍🏼
Well said, thanks for giving your side.
I was excited to go see Nomadland when it came out to the theaters. I had assumed that it would remind me of all my travels in my VW Camper around the Western U.S. over the past 40 years. The open road, the deserts, the sagebrush, the peace and quiet, the camp spots, the sunrises and sunsets. After viewing it, I would completely agree with your synopsis of the movie’s content and storyline. The movie depicted mostly the poor nomads. It was a very depressing movie, and I also could not relate. I will not be seeing it again, but I do plan on meandering happily around the Western U.S. indefinitely until my days are done. Cheers to you both and your blog!
Thanks for your comment! And like you, we plan on continuing our travels around the U.S. Safe travels!
Thanks, Tim… We appreciate that!
I totally agree with your assessment of the movie! It was marketed as the nomad lifestyle but was really about finding oneself after the death of a partner. I think that aspect of the movie was downplayed.
Yes… a little misleading!
Although your experience differs from that of the characters in the film, the majority of them are real nomads that the author of the book ( adapted into a screenplay) worked alongside during her research. Because your experience isn’t the same it shouldn’t invalidate those who have shared their own stories.
https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a35538486/nomadland-fern-true-story-jessica-bruder-linda-bob-swankie-now/
We don’t feel our post was invalidating anyone’s experience. We were simply pointing out that thousands of people consider themselves nomads, and in fact are, but the movie depicted only a very small portion of them. It’s like titling a movie “Cops” and then only depicting the less than one percent of the “bad apples.” The movie came across to us as more of a story about one woman’s struggles rather than “Nomads.” We do appreciate your opinion and understand and acknowledge the different types of nomads out there, but we wish the movie would have better represented all of us.
I think you have missed the point. You are expecting a film, just because it has a title that resonates with your lifestyle, to represent everything you have experienced. This film never was about every single person’s experience, how could that ever be achieved? This was one woman who had meticulously researched people, who she deeply connected with, living a lifestyle she wanted to honour. If you want to represent every nomads lifestyle in one narrative on film, give it a go, I wish you the best of luck.
I don’t think we, or anyone else who has watched the movie, read our post and agree with us, are missing the point. And it’s not just “us” the title of the movie resonates with. It’s thousands, if not hundreds-of-thousands, of nomads that the title resonates with. It’s the majority. Also, we don’t watch any movie and expect it to represent our “personal experiences,” but we also don’t expect the title of it to encompass the lifestyle of so many and then represent just a few.