RaMell Ross’ fiction debut adapts the 2019 Colson Whitehead novel, intertwining soul-bearing sentiment and revolutionary craft.
★★★★★
In the opening minutes of Nickel Boys, we see Elwood (Ethan Herisse) as a young child, staring at a TV on a storefront. We see his reflection in the window as well as what’s showing on the television; a speech by Martin Luther King speech. In the very next scene, Elwood looks down at his skin. Without seeing his face, we can understand the amount of confusion he is realising that his skin colour comes with, the fact that it’ll be a burden to him until his deathbed. He may not understand why, but the sinking feeling is there. Nickel Boys has numerous moments like this, ambitious filmmaking meeting deep human emotion in a perfectly balanced fashion.
Nickel Boys follows Elwood growing up in 1962 Jim Crow-era Florida, his mind shaped by a good education, belief in himself and justice in the world thanks to his grandmother Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), and the Civil Rights movement. As he hitchhikes in an African-American man’s car on his way to college, they are pulled over and arrested, halting the progress of the 15-year-old overachiever and relocating him to Nickel Academy, a segregated reform college. In this place, where he and several other black students are subjected to a variety of abuse, he finds Turner (Brandon Wilson) and creates a friendship that changes the trajectory of both of their lives.
The film regularly switches between the perspectives of Elwood and Turner, presenting two conflicting views on life. As Turner remains hopeless in Nickel Academy, committed to playing a game with his oppressors, outsmarting them and finding loopholes in their systems and intentions to find his freedom, Elwood is rather straightforward, believing in justice and kindness even if it is at risk to himself. The former is seen in a closer frame, the latter in a wider context, alternating between the two allowing the characters to be seen beyond their own viewpoints and in relationship to their environments.
As much as there is trauma and the darkest depths of human behaviour in this film, there is also beauty. We have time to see the beating Southern sun peek through the trees, the intensity of a smile, a laugh, a greeting—which all helps to ground this story as it looks beyond the reform college and through time and space, scenes intercut with archival footage and a timeline skip to the 2010s. Nickel Boys isn’t just about the past and the horrors committed there, but the people who survived it and still live with us today. How do they live, create relationships, trust a person? Uncovering the past can help us understand who we are now, and make peace with that in whatever way possible.
The Verdict
Nickel Boys is a film which is sure to wow purely on a cinematic level, every use of the camera bringing further dimension to the story and putting us almost unbearably close to its events. The story is so powerful that it might be surprising to learn that Nickel Boys is based on a fiction and not an autobiography (although Colson Whitehead’s novel was based on the real Dozier School for Boys). Few movies consistently impress on a moment-to-moment basis like this, and they should be celebrated like the miracles they are when they do happen.
Words by Ellis Lamai
Nickel Boys is in cinemas from 3 January.
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