The lack of both a narrative situation and a strong theatrical treatment puts Nowhere in the middle of an awkward position between naturalistic observation and realist drama. Each scene in the film has a clear direction, but the break in the image logic between scenes makes the scene lack of malleability. Likewise, Frances McDormand's stellar performance is out of place in a film that's meant to be naturalistic, leaving the "nomads" described in the first half of the film like interviewed extras into a situational vacuum.
So we end up with a film that is not personal enough to empathize with and understand the motivations of the nomads through McDormand's superb theatrical performance; and that it also lacks sufficient sociological thinking to establish a structural political context. In a film paralyzed by the logic of the image, the wilderness becomes some kind of over-romantic spectacle. With a soundtrack that plays every ten minutes, "Nowhere" sinks into a grand and unspecified lyric, while American audiences are told how to feel sorry for themselves in the form of a travel vlog.
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