Nickel Boys

 

Director RaMell Ross's bold debut feature film, Nickel Boys, is based on Colson Whitehead's prize-winning novel of the same name, about the abuse and exploitation of Black boys in a Florida reform school called Nickel Academy.

Nickel Boys is based on events at a reform school in the pandhandle where boys were abused and some killed and buried on the property in unmarked graves. The story is told through variations on first-person perspective, an imaginative approach that broadens the viewers' perception of the things, large and small, that give life meaning.

In the film, Nickel Academy houses boys of all races but only actually "schools" the white boys; the other boys get a smattering of teaching. They mainly work at the school or on neighboring farms to produce income for the school. It's a type of chain gang imprisonment for children. The boys are poorly nourished, except when inspectors come. They are policed endlessly and punished brutally if / when they misstep by the school superintendent (Hamish Linklater).

The film is set in the early '60s; the Civil Rights Movement sits prominently in the background as a historical marker and reminder that institutional discrimination permeated all aspects of life in the South. Sixteen-year-old Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is walking to enroll in a trade school when he hitches a ride, unaware the vehicle was stolen by the driver. Audiences don't witness Elwood's trial, if there was one; we presume he was found guilty of being an accessory to a crime and sentenced to Nickel. His grandmother, Hattie, (another wonderful performance by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), promises to win his release, but her attempts to do so and even to visit her grandson are stifled.

Elwood becomes friends with a streetwise boy named Turner (a terrific Brandon Wilson), who is weary of the talk of changes coming for Blacks because he has seen no evidence of that at Nickel or even in Houston, his hometown. The boys become close. Turner helps Elwood navigate the harsh terrain and secures for him lighter duties working for a young white man, Harper (Fred Hechinger), who for a while adds a deceptively benign presence to the picture.

Ross and the film's director of photography, Jomo Fray, move the camera fluidly and unexpectedly around the events in this harrowing story, often switching between points-of-view. Some audiences might find the dynamic lensing disorienting or affectatious. I appreciated the immediacy of the camera and Ross's discretion in how much of the visual horrors he would include -- almost none.

Many have heralded Nickel Boys as a stunning cinematic achievement. I won't disagree in the least, but do worry some audiences might not embrace this important story because of it's unorthodox approach. Their loss, I say.