As her documentary “Stories We Tell” taught and this movie’s exemplary ensemble shows, Sarah Polley has an eye for pinpointing deeper layers of consequence.

Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand play scheming lovers in the latest big-screen adaptation of a classic story, and one of its most stark renditions.

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?