The Last Taboo

Hollywood's Long Overdue Permission to Age in Plain Sight

“Nomadland” is a dignified, devastating film. At its center is Fern, a woman who takes to the road after the death of her husband and economic collapse of her hometown in Nevada.

Frances McDormand plays Fern, a woman in her mid-sixties. Fern is every bit her age; McDormand plays her minus make-up or flattering camera angles. This unvarnished aspect of “Nomadland” was not only integral to the cinematic relaying of Fern’s story, it also gave me hope that it’s no longer box-office poison to show that female humans, if lucky, get old.

I’ll admit it; watching Nicole Kidman in “The Undoing” freaked me out. Scenes where she was afraid, or furious, or sad, or lovingly maternal, registered identically on her filled, frozen face. At the end of the movie, she jumps from a helicopter and runs across a bridge to save her son from imminent death, and even as she bobs and sprints, her slightly smiling expression is fixed, like a small Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.

On the other hand, close-ups of McDormand’s unaltered creases felt like a road map of Fern’s story. There was no preening self-consciousness to pull me out of the constellation of Nomadland’s real people and real places, with McDormand as True North.

Getting old in America, especially for women, has long felt like a personal and commercial failing. We perceive- because of the vast machine built around fighting aging, because of how others perceive and, in turn, make us perceive ourselves- basically, that as we get old, we become sad, musty embarrassments.

Time changes us, whether we resist or allow it. Nomadland showed me that leaning into the change is not only badass but beautiful. Think about it. What part of the entire human experience would you choose to skip? Can you name one? I can’t. I’d rather spend every second fully immersed rather than ashore, futilely trying to hold back the tide.