R | 1h 48min | Drama | 19 February 2021 (USA) Here’s an interesting dilemma: “Nomadland” is a well-made movie with the feel of a documentary, since it uses many of the actual nomadic van-dwellers written about in award-winning gonzo journalist Jessica Bruder’s book of the same name. It’s got most critics out of their minds with happiness. But I hated it. Why? It depressed me out of my gourd; it may be the most depressing thing I’ve seen in the last five years. What else am I supposed to feel about the subject matter? You’ve got elderly Americans forced out of secure lives by fate, into cruel states of Steinbeckian migrant survival, working the most menial jobs imaginable. You’ve got your truck-stop toilet cleaning, sugar beet harvesting, mind-destroying monotonous assembly-line-type Amazon factory jobs (the employers knowingly prey on the elderly), with no relief in sight.  They live in vans …