OldBoy

it was really only a few actors anyway. The rest were real people. Slow, plodding and simply boring. No story, certainly. Just showing a different way of living. Harsher then many of us know. And sure the movie was genuine and very good in terms of what Zhao was trying to get across and that is a way of life most of us don’t know or perhaps even cared to know. Don’t think McDormand needed or deserved another. Thought Mulligan should have. But, like Deck, just not my cup of tea. At all. This and Roma have been my 2 stinkers past few years.

Decker

^ I would have voted for Mulligan if I were an Academy member. She blew me away.
Fran was great as always, but you know, she didn't do anything here I haven't seen her do before -- except shit in a bucket and skinny dip, and I really didn't need to see either.

JeffTheAlpaca

I wonder if Francis is sleeping with somebody with connections since she almost always wins and Glen Close has been nominated 8 times and never wins.

Why So Blu?

Getting old sucks ass. I remember her looking fairly hot in Laurel Canyon (yeah, it's a 20 year old film) playing Christian Bale's free lovin' mom rockstar music producer. Don't know that I want to watch her shit in a bucket , though.

Coral

I think the rule is if Frances is nominated for leading role, she's supposed to win. If she's nominated for supporting role - she's supposed to lose.
She's 3 for 6 - 3 lead wins, 3 supporting losses.

Amy Adams has only been acting for 21 years and she's already catching up to Glenn Close as she's 0 for 6.
Close is 0 for 8, but she's been acting for 46 years.

inri222

A slow meditative journey into the human psyche. Reminded me in some ways of Terrence Malick.

4 out of 5

Runaway

Yeah, nearly as boring as a Terrence Malick movie, but at least with dialogue and watchable editing.

mickey65

I was finally able to see this yesterday. I really liked it and enjoyed the scenery with the places she visited. I think after being tethered to Empire as long as she was, she didn't want to be stuck in one place anymore. Something happened to her when she was a kid that wasn't touched on during the film, only hinted at when her and her sister were talking.

It is a bit on the slow side, but I enjoyed watching how she survived day by day. I know the Amazon job was a temp job, but don't understand how all the other jobs were as well - especially the camp host job she got in the Badlands? Also, I couldn't figure out what those piles were of that she was working with at that one hard-hat job out in the middle of nowhere with all those guys - potatoes?

My take on the ending as she drove away was that she was probably going to live alone the rest of her days on the road like her buddy Swankie did.

Another good movie sort of like this that I can recommend is "The Short History of the Long Road". Another movie about someone living on the road in their van and how they survive. Danny Trejo is also in that one and his role is pretty good.

And of course there was the English movie, "The Lady in the Van", which is pretty good also, but she's lived in a parked van!

asianxcore

Yup, those were potatoes.

Late to the party but I finally got a chance to watch this film.

Not a film that has a ton of replay value but is filled with great visuals and performances from Frances McDormand as well as a slew of non-actors.

I appreciated the film as a character study and many of themes resonated with me, especially with how difficult the past few years have been.

Paff

Finally got a chance to see this over the weekend. First of the 2020 BP nominees that I've seen, actually. Got a lot more to go.

I really dug it. I don't always need a plot-driven film, I enjoy the so-called "fly on the wall" movies from time to time, and I especially love movies that show the underbelly of the United States. People coping with life on a day-to-day basis, and without some splashy ending or rescue at the end. For them, life just goes on, every day a struggle just to get through. Comparisons to The Florida Project are apt (really, any of Sean Baker's films), but also American Honey, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete, and one I just saw on Showtime, Holler (about those who scavenge scrap metal to get by).

Some other things addressed in this thread:
It was sugar beets she was packing, not potatoes.
The poop in the bucket was actually real, just a happy accident of keeping the cameras rolling, suddenly McDormand had the immediate need. That's probably why Zhao kept it in, because it was a real occurrence and underscored just what nomad life is like.

My overall take of the film is that it is Fern's grieving process over the loss of her husband, and it's not over yet. Nor does she want it to be over, and all the proposed solutions to her situation that she dismisses are proof of it. In my mind, when she's finally ready to move on, she'll find a stable life situation. Similar to Straitharn's character, who reached a point where nomadic life wasn't right anymore and he moved back in with his family. When Fern reaches that point, she'll do the same. But she's not there yet.