Based on a book by Jessica Bruder,a journalist who spent three years exploring the routes and routines of America’s grey nomads,it turns out to be a politics-free zone. Fern and her fellow travellers don’t dwell on their grievances. Most have chosen a life of mobility because it suits them. To them,houseless doesn’t mean homeless.

Directed by Chloe Zhao,a Californian-based Chinese,who impressed McDormand with her last film,The Rider,a contemporary Western,the film could have been a disaster. McDormand and David Strathairn are the only two professional actors in the cast. Everybody else is a genuine nomad and the interaction between them could have resulted in a discordant hybrid of the real and the made-up,but the integration is seamless. The least actressy of actresses,McDormand merges completely with the landscape and everybody in it. The friendships that Fern makes spring from a collective store of commonsense gained from experience and coloured with playful good humour.