Amid the forced gags and disorienting battles are glimpses of an emotional depth which the world's biggest franchise has typically shrunk away from.

An earnest portrait of a country and a subtle inquiry into the direction it’s been heading, “Nomadland” shepherds us to snow-capped mountain ranges and dry plains, derelict towns and lonely roads, redwood forests and gulf-stream waters. Traversing these spaces – captured with a necessary sense of majesty – is Frances McDormand’s Fern, and it’s in her that “Nomadland” emphasizes the truth in that American hymn’s most important lyric, as well as its contradiction: This land may be made for you and me, but what about the structures physical and economic raised over more and more of that land? Who are they for?