So this is a new release, in theatres now but also streaming on Hulu, and as a kind of tangent, this “all new releases go straight to streaming” is a thing I will miss when studios return to business-as-usual. It’s directed by Chloé Zhao, whose The Rider I kept wanting to watch (but it wasn’t (and isn’t) on any streaming service); you’re going to be hearing more about her soon, as she’s also directing Eternals for Marvel.

But this movie, like most movies, is not about a race of alien space gods. It is instead about people who wander America in vans and RVs. They’re largely people who are living on the margins economically — working seasonal jobs as part of Amazon’s “CamperForce” and the like — but this isn’t tragedy porn, or the kind of thing that you’d describe as “an unflinching look at the gritty economic realities of America.”

I suspect some reviewers will find that to be a fault, because you could make that movie, a strident call to arms for basic income or something, so this is going to seem like a missed opportunity. But it’s just not the movie Zhao is making; notably, her protagonist, played by Frances McDormand, is someone who’s educated enough to have worked as a substitute teacher, and who has a sister secure enough to offer her a place to stay and loan her a few grand for van repairs when needed.

But she doesn’t want to stay with her sister, and that gets at what this movie is really doing, which is looking at these modern nomads not as the victims of circumstance to be pitied, but instead taking them on their own terms as they see themselves. There are, after all, a lot of ways to be poor in America, and hopping into a van and driving all over the country isn’t a default choice even for those with little money.

And so at times as characters are speaking, the movie feels documentary-ish in its realism, and that’s deliberate: Except for McDormand and The Expanse’s Captain Ashford (here affecting a very credible Earther accent), all the actors are non-professional actors, who are basically playing lightly fictionalized versions of themselves. The Santa-looking guy who runs the big Rubber Tramp Rendezvous meetup? That’s a real thing, and he’s the real guy who does that.

I don’t know exactly how the filming worked, how much was improv or scripted or whatever, but it definitely captures the feeling of real people kinda self-consciously talking about themselves, while still unambiguously being fiction.

And so while the movie captures the dangers and desperations of this van life — the grueling labor as a seasonal agriculture worker, or cleaning out filthy bathrooms in summer vacation spots, the realities of pooping in a bucket, or just the way that a flat tire can really screw you over — it also captures the attractions of the life. The appeal of the open road, of not being tied down to anything more than you can carry with you, of having an intermittent community of friends who you don’t need to see every day, but are likely to see “down the road” again.

This isn’t by and large a romantic movie — nobody does a Shawshank twirl in the rain, and the quasi-relationship between McDormand and Captain Ashford is low-key and ambivalent — but it does capture the beauty of these landscapes, the wonder of coming face-to-face with wildlife, and you can understand that it’s not just a lack of retirement savings that sets people on this path.

This is such a well-made movie, constantly refusing to take the obvious path, and working with subtlety and grace to draw this portrait of both a character and a way of life. Highly recommended.