David Lee/Netflix; Courtesy of Neon; Courtesy of Fox Searchlight; Courtesy of Netflix
Left: Viola Davis in Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Kate Winslet in Ammonite, Frances McDormand in Nomadland and Radha Blank in The Forty-Year-Old Version.
This season’s crop of blunt, commanding and steely female protagonists seen in Ammonite, The Forty-Year-Old Version, Nomadland, Pieces of a Woman and Promising Young Woman provide strength in numbers. I can’t live in this room.”
Frances McDormand’s van-dwelling character utters these unequivocal words during a crucial exchange in
Nomadland, one that unfolds in the guest room of a suburban house. A strikingly similar rejection of a well-meaning offer of shelter, of security takes place near the end of