Science and Technical Research and Development.Infrastructure Management - Transport, Utilities.Information Services, Statistics, Records, Archives.Information and Communications Technology.HR, Training and Organisational Development.Health - Medical and Nursing Management.Facility / Grounds Management and Maintenance.This is seasonal work, but not as we know it: having nothing to do with the planets or the crop cycle, and everything to do with the vagaries of a vague and mysterious corporate power. From there, she joins a community of nomads, before working at a camp, a diner and a sugar beet plant, among other places. Here, we are confronted with an image of workers subject to perennial exhaustion, living out of trailers after completing gruelling days on the warehouse floor. Forced to live in her van, Fern works at an Amazon warehouse over the winter, in a sequence that might just make a small dent in the American delivery giant’s share price. It follows the triumph of Parasite at last year’s ceremony: a story about the perils of an unregulated job market. She won her third best actress Academy Award on Sunday night (25 April), while the film also won Best Picture and Best Director for Chloé Zhao. From her role as the beloved, if cantankerous, Olive Kitteridge in the TV adaptation of the Elizabeth Strout novels, to her stone-faced turn in the picaresque Fargo and her vengeful crusade in Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, she has steadily transformed the American filmmaking tradition, stripping it of its gloss and edifice to reveal a new medium capable, perhaps, of social realism. Her performances acknowledge a real world replete with stories of an often morbid human truth seldom seen on US television and cinema screens. The film’s protagonist, Fern, is played by Frances McDormand, who, having spotted a loose thread in the tightly woven tapestry of Hollywood optimism, has spent several decades tirelessly untangling it. These events are real, based on accounts contained in a book of the same name by the journalist Jessica Bruder. This happens when the Gypsum Corporation plant in her hometown of Empire, Nevada, is closed down, casting around 800 residents out and leading to the termination of the town’s zip code.

The film tells the story of a woman made homeless and forced to become one of the millions of nomads living in America from their motorhomes and RVs. In the case of Nomadland, that means confronting a global audience with the stark reality of the Amazon warehouse, as well as the immiseration brought about by the US labour crisis. Loath as I am to pay attention to award ceremonies, success at the Oscars nevertheless guarantees a film will be watched by several millions of people.

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