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Gypsum-owned factory town where they lived for decades. The movie begins in the winter of 2011, some time after the death of Fern’s husband, Bo, and the collapse of Empire, Nev., the U.S. Like her fellow nomads, she’ll take every scrap of grace she can get. “OK,” she says, appraising her good-enough handiwork. (It also manifests itself in the plaintive musical score, excerpted from the work of the Italian composer Ludovico Einaudi.) We sense Fern’s gratitude as she tucks into a hot cup of chili with other hungry travelers, or her satisfaction when she glues together the broken pieces of a plate, a cherished gift from her father.

Sometimes that grace manifests itself in the unobtrusive beauty of Joshua James Richards’ widescreen images, in the gentle curve of a highway or the sunlight gleaming over a crowded RV park.

It would be hard to overlook the spiritual presence - a good word for it would be “grace” - that hovers over every frame of this movie and the spare, wrenching story it has to tell. There is no transcendence at the end of her long, harrowing journey, but there are unexpected gifts, guardian angels and places of refuge. Fern, played by McDormand at the plainspoken peak of her powers, is a widow in her 60s with no children to speak of, though at one point she does awkwardly cradle a sleeping infant. “Nomadland,” which will begin a weeklong virtual run Friday before opening more widely in February, does bear a passing (and sometimes amusing) resemblance to a modern-day nativity play. The song she’s singing is “What Child Is This?,” a seasonally appropriate choice that sent my thoughts drifting back centuries to another group of wanderers, seeking shelter from a world that seems oblivious to their sufferings and ignorant of their worth. Her destination is an Amazon warehouse where she will spend weeks bubble-wrapping and sealing packages for delivery, a grueling godsend of a job that will help her and many other itinerant workers get through the rough winter months ahead. Near the beginning of “Nomadland,” Chloé Zhao’s wise, wistful hymn to the open road, Fern (Frances McDormand) drives her van through a chilly stretch of Nevada desert, singing to herself as the wind lashes her windows. Because moviegoing carries risks during this time, we remind readers to follow health and safety guidelines as outlined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local health officials. The Times is committed to reviewing theatrical film releases during the COVID-19 pandemic.