They don’t recognize her at first. The students who once turned to Frances McDormand’s wearied and weathered Fern for tutoring are now almost walking right by their former educator in an early pivotal scene from Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland. Fern is at the same superstore as them to buy supplies for the beat-up RV she lives in outside. In another life they were neighbors from the mining town of Empire, Nevada. But that place is gone, and today they’re practically strangers, scattered to the wind when they bump into each other.