Wanting to just say “Fuck it”, pack into a van, and go anywhere other than here is a rather common thought nowadays. Even as a functional introvert, I feel as if recent events have been testing my willingness to spend most of my waking hours indoors. So with indie filmmaker and soon-to-be MCU inductee Chloé Zhao’s latest feature, there’s definite timeliness to be gotten out of watching Fern (Frances McDormand) roam America in her RV, and wishing one could do the same in these days of lockdown. Only what’s being tapped into is at once removed from the here and now (taking place in the wake of the global financial crisis), but also informed by events that have been steadily growing worse in the interim.
