Watching director Chloé Zhao's gentle epic Nomadland is a transportive experience—quite literally, since much of the film is spent inside or around converted vans, zooming down interstates or sneakily parked on empty lots. It's dreamy, even spiritual, to see characters left behind by mainstream society unspool their lives against the American West's abundant beauty. Based on Jessica Bruder's 2017 non-fiction book of the same name and set against the backdrop of the 2008 recession, the film is a unique mixture of reality and fiction. The events that precede the film are real: In 2011, a US Gypsum plant shut down in Empire, Nevada, effectively killing the town around it. After caring for her late husband, a former Empire resident and widow, Fern (Frances McDormand), decides against permanent relocation and takes her life on the road. by Jas Keimig