Chloé Zhao’s Nomadland is an utterly inspired docu-fictional hybrid. It is a gentle, compassionate, questioning film about the American soul. With artistry and grace, Zhao folds nonprofessionals into an imagined story built around a cheerful, resourceful, middle-aged woman played by Frances McDormand. This quiet, self-effacing performance may be the best of her career so far.

Nomadland is about a new phenomenon: America’s 60- and 70-something generation whose economic future was shattered by the 2008 crash. They are grey-haired middle-class strivers reduced to poverty who can’t afford to retire but can’t afford to work while maintaining a home. So they have become nomads, a new American tribe roaming the country in camper vans in which they sleep, looking for seasonal work in bars, restaurants and – in this film – in a gigantic Amazon warehouse in Nevada, which takes the place of the agricultural work searched for by itinerant workers in stories such as The Grapes of Wrath.

The film shows you that, along with the hardship and the heartache, there is also serenity in this way of life, even a kind of euphoria – without the burdens of a house and possessions you can have a glorious and very American freedom in the lost tradition of Emerson and Twain. But what happens if your van – or your body – shows signs of collapse?

The movie is inspired by Jessica Bruder’s 2017 nonfiction book, Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, and by the radical nomadist and anti-capitalist leader Bob Wells, who appears as himself and has a devastatingly moving speech at the end of the film.

Zhao may well have drawn some inspiration from movies such as Barbara Loden’s Wanda (1970) or Terrence Malick’s Days of Heaven (1978), with their hard-scrabble world. The important difference is that her movie is not directionally shaped by narrative – that is, a narrative towards disaster – in the usual way, although there are important plot developments concerning Fern’s relationship with her shy suitor. It is more of a group portrait and a portrait of the times, brought off with exceptional intelligence and style. Arguably it is not angry enough about the economic forces that are causing all this but it still looks superbly forthright. There is real greatness in Chloé Zhao’s film-making.