I pulled myself together and rewatched Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland, which won the Oscar for Best Picture at the surreal, pandemic-driven 2021 Academy Awards.

I understand that people were rightly in a somber mood during the first year of the pandemic. “Nomadland,” which won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, was only the third film from Chinese-born Zhao. Its themes of isolation and finding one’s place in life resonated with many critics and, evidently, Oscar voters.

Much like her previous works, this was Zhao’s portrayal of the angst of 21st century American society, mixing nonfiction and fiction, influenced by Terrence Malick’s cinema. A painterly film, aided by Joshua James Richards’ magical camerawork,

In Nomadland, Frances McDormand plays Fern, a widowed nomad with no interest in settling down, who constantly moves from community to community in her dilapidated RV. Don’t call her homeless, she prefers to use the term “houseless,” and moves from job to job, camp to camp, parking lot to parking lot, with no intention of settling down. Set in Obama’s America circa 2012, just four years after the onset of the recession, the film shows a country still struggling to return to normality.

To achieve the authenticity of this world, Zhao insisted on casting non-professional actors, real nomads. Whether these non-professional actors even knew McDormand, a two-time Oscar winner, is still an open question. To this day, many of these “homeless” non-professional actors live on the fringes of society, disconnected from the mainstream and completely rooted in their isolated habitat.

Driven by Ludovico Einaudi’s piano score, Nomadland is a quietly dark look at a withdrawn woman who refuses to change and resists all advances, including a charming fellow nomad she meets every few months of the year – a wonderful supporting performance by David Straitharn. Despite his attraction to Fern, not to mention his open invitation for stability and a home, he is rejected by her. Fern is a creature of habit and would rather lead a hard life of work and daily wandering.

There isn’t much plot in Nomadland. It was a statement of character, atmosphere and mood, all wrapped up in a socially critical and repetitive narrative. Zhao took the cinematic approach of her mentor Malick and worked almost entirely without a script, encouraging improvisation, looking for happy coincidences and even including non-professionals in the cast.

Upon rewatch, Nomadland’s flaws are even more apparent. It lacks the necessary sketched-out character traits to be the compelling character study it claims to be. We never get to know Fern well enough to truly care about her fate. Instead, Zhao prefers to delve into unnecessary shots of sunsets, trees, and mountain peaks.

Zhao and Richards’ collaboration can be seen as an extension of a certain kind of cinematic movement first initiated by Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki – with “The New World” (2006) and later perfected with “The Tree of Life” (2011). Often referred to as “New Naturalism,” this movement is all about authenticity and rhythmic, poetic editing that strips the narrative of any artificiality.

And yet Zhao’s film is ultimately a case of style over substance. Despite such a grim subject matter, there is no harshness in “Nomadland,” just a lot of sitting around campfires, singing and praising street life. The film is ultimately more picturesque than realistic.

Zhao shows none of the pent-up anger. The everyday struggle for safety, health and food is replaced with beautiful nature shots. Her focus is mistakenly on capturing visual poetry. This means she shoots at the magic hour and uses wide-angle lenses at every opportunity. Zhao’s long shots, deliberate moments of stillness and calm feel dated and not particularly original. There’s a lot to admire, but not much that really grabs.