Why Nomadland’s sunny depiction of seasonal work at an Amazon fulfilment centre strikes such a false note

The Oscar-winning film was available to watch in the UK days after a bitter unionisation battle was lost. The company’s use of PR to address criticism of conditions isn’t working, writes James Moore

Frances McDormand won an Oscar for ‘Nomadland’ but critics have rounded on the way the film portrays Amazon (20th Century Studios)

A rare knock on Nomadland, Chloe Zhao’s multiple-Oscar-winning exploration of the lives of those forced into a wandering existence on the fringes of American society, concerns its sunny depiction of life at an Amazon fulfilment centre. 

The company’s seasonal work programme is featured a few minutes into the film, which has just dropped on Disney Plus in the UK. It is shown as providing the mostly elderly nomads with a place to stay, the companionship of smiling colleagues, and work that Frances McDormand’s character Fern says she likes – not to mention “great money”. 

Small wonder that the monster truck of the corporate world allowed the cameras in.