Edwin Arnaudin: The Academy Awards are still two months away, and while there’s still a chance for an exciting film like Da 5 Bloods or Promising Young Woman to gain momentum via the various guild prizes, the current film to beat appears to be Nomadland. The third feature from writer/director Chloé Zhao (The Rider) follows widow Fern (Frances McDormand) as she embraces van life, meeting colorful fellow transients throughout the west and grappling with the temptations of returning to domesticity. Were you glad to be along for the trip?

Bruce Steele: I both enjoyed and admired Nomadland for the most part, but it's an oddball frontrunner. It's an oddball period — a hybrid of documentary re-creation and narrative filmmaking. Fern is fictional — a composite, if you will — but many of the most interesting and loquacious characters she meets are the real transients featured in the nonfiction book by Jessica Bruder that inspired the movie. If you don't know that going in, it just seems like Zhao found some especially authentic supporting players. McDormand blends fairly convincingly with these folks. Then one of my favorite actors shows up — David Strathairn — and the illusion sort of falls apart. He seems to have beamed in from another universe.

Edwin: I was always aware of it being “McDormand and Strathairn milling with non-professional actors,” and was often distracted by their famous faces and disproportionate dramatic skills. The Rider doesn’t have this issue and is the stronger film for it, but there’s still plenty to admire here. Zhao is a talented artist with a big heart and a laudable dedication to telling stories about real people struggling to survive and find happiness largely outside of society’s trappings. Nomadland’s commentary on living outside of “the system” is potent, its depiction of the gig economy is nearly as moving as Sorry We Missed You, and Joshua James Richards’ cinematography is among the year’s best. And yet, I doubt it will crack my Top 25 for 2020.

Bruce: It might make my Top 25, in part because it was such a thin year for great filmmaking. I agree with you about Zhao — she's doing something fresh and daring here and in The Rider. (Readers should seek out that film if they haven't seen it.) The blend of real pros and real peeps was sometimes lumpy in Nomadland, but for me McDormand is earthy enough to serve as the glue that holds them together. Except, that is, when Strathairn and his real-life son, Tay, show up, and the film shifts gears with a sometimes painful grind. Still, it's a window to a kind of unmoored life most people probably never knew existed, and that keeps it fascinating. I liked that Zhao's screenplay makes you work a little to figure things out, and the dialogue has an admirable veracity.

Edwin: Precious little is spoon-fed to audiences, and that's indeed refreshing. From the ramifications of Fern’s former mill-town home of Empire, Nevada, having its zip code retired to seasonal work at an Amazon fulfillment center to what’s led more experienced nomads to nontraditional living, most everything here is revealed in its own sweet time. Were you particularly taken with any of the real-life travelers?

Bruce: Bob Wells, the nomads' philosopher king, comes through as charismatic as he probably is in real life, but it's the gruff woman known as Swanky who's getting the most critical attention, deservedly so. Zhao smartly gives her a (presumably fictional) narrative arc that she leans into, and the subplot also gives the movie a nice emotional kick. Am I forgetting any of your favorites?

Edwin: Linda May is an excellent constant as Fern’s best friend, and I’m with you on Swanky and Bob. Otherwise, engaging people pop up for a scene or two, offering nuggets of wisdom for Fern along her journey — and that brevity is probably for the best as it’s tough to compete with the beauty of the natural landscapes she travels through.

Pretty much all the pieces are present for a profound statement on the soul of modern America, but looking at the cinematic year that was, I was far more taken with stories of the Black experience (Soul; Da 5 Bloods; Mangrove), our socio-political history repeating itself (Mank; The Trial of the Chicago 7), and the #MeToo movement (Promising Young Woman). Nomadland doesn’t deserve Best Picture or Best Director, but it won’t be a Green Book-level outrage if this B-plus film takes home those honors.

Bruce: It's a sort of fitting film for 2020 — it's about dislocation and isolation and disconnection from normal work and family support structures. While I don't think it's the best of the year, if Zhao were to beat my non-animation favorites, Aaron Sorkin (Chicago 7) and Emerald Fennell (Promising Young Woman), I would smile at the continuing weirdness of the year past, and its remarkable ability to bring the fringes into the center. I'll take shotgun for your B-plus.

Grade:B-plus . Rated R. Available to stream via Hulu, and also playing at AMC River Hills 10

(Photos: Searchlight Pictures)