I initially experienced (I say experienced because my screening truly transcended simply watching a movie) Nickel Boys in October at the Chicago International Film Festival. As the final image played and the credits began to roll, I realized my face was wet and I’d been crying for who knows how long. I was so absorbed in the rich and difficult world writer-director RaMell Ross crafted that the world around me melted away. And while there were a lot of thoughts and feelings to parse through, it was the easiest five out of five I’d given all festival.
With his Academy Award-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018), Ross challenged the traditional form of documentary filmmaking to expand the audience’s perspective and point of view. When discussing the documentary, Ross stated that “we look at Black folks, we don’t often look from Black folks.” Now, with his debut feature narrative, Ross again asks audiences to look from the Black perspective in this haunting, poetic, and visceral adaptation.
Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys follows two Black boys, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson) who are sent to an abusive reform school in 1960s Florida. The novel and film are based on the Dozier School for Boys, a notorious reform school that operated until 2011.
The film alternates between the first-person point of view of Elwood and Turner. In lesser hands, this technique could easily fall into gimmicky territory. However, Ross conducts an exercise in patience, ultimately rewarding the audience for fully surrendering to the experience. In the first twenty or so minutes, Ross takes you through Elwood’s upbringing and day-to-day life with his grandmother Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor). In doing so, Ross not only steadily immerses the viewer into the atypical format, opting to steadily immerse the viewer into the atypical format, but also builds out the socio-political atmosphere of the era.
We see Elwood in school where his classmates are tasked with removing racist graffiti from the second-hand textbooks. Elwood catches a glimpse of Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking on television. He volunteers to make signs for a peaceful Civil Rights protest and subsequently appears in the paper. The first-person point of view enhances the details of these moments in a way that another perspective could not showcase. Also, interspersing these pivotal moments among seemingly innocuous scenes — decorating the Christmas tree with Hattie, mindlessly playing with a balloon, and going on a first date — makes the atmosphere and environment feel all the more palpable.
This exercise in immersion is meticulously crafted before we even arrive at the inciting incident.
At the push of his teacher, Elwood gets accepted into an accelerated study program at an HBCU. While walking to campus one day, a stranger offers him a ride. However, after being pulled over by the police, they reveal the car is stolen. The police convict Elwood as the stranger’s accomplice and he is sent to Nickel Academy.
There he meets Turner, a jaded student who has spent years at the Academy. Despite his cynicism clashing with the bright optimism Elwood picked up working with the Civil Rights Movement, the two become each other’s primary support as they navigate the Academy’s corrupt and racist dealings.
Ross’ intricate and patient eye allows his achievement to truly sing in a conclusion that rewards the audience’s patience. He trusts his audience to handle the material and, while never holding their hand, envelopes them in an experiment demanding empathy. He never exploits the plights of his characters to manipulate the audience to feel, but he does present the opportunity to walk in their shoes. Some scenes are claustrophobic and downright hard to sit through as we witness the atrocities of Nickel Academy.
However, he also captures the small little wonders that young people can find in the world before they’re painted in cynicism. Ross has referred to his use of imagery as the “epic banal,” a phrase he uses to describe the idea of creating an epic moment out of something so simple. The fact that he is not a frontrunner in the Best Director conversation is baffling and no lineup is complete without his name.
As much as Nickel Boys operates as an experiment in perspective, it’s also an exercise in memory. Jomo Fray’s hazy cinematography showcases how memory seeps into our everyday lives, even when we are far removed from the experience. Imagery and reality collide as we witness someone trying to piece the moments together in order to make sense of their trauma and forge their future. As we look back on our lives, we are able to track the evolution of our worldview and how outside factors sculpt that.
Herisse and Wilson are given a challenging task as large portions of their performances (particularly Herisse’s) are offscreen. They more than rise to the occasion and deliver quiet, powerful performances that are never overpowered by the form. Herisse carefully constructs Elwood with a bright-eyed optimism that never comes across as naive or ignorant. The moments where Elwood’s faith falters resonate powerfully as Herisse chooses to play them like water slipping through cracks as opposed to a gradual unfurling.
Wilson carries a palpable pain beneath Turner’s resignation. His character is soft-spoken but his eyes almost cry out for help or release. Wilson brings a haunted quality to Turner that is devastating to watch as more playful qualities shine through. Both young men deliver performances riddled with nuanced restraint that you cannot teach. The fact that their work resides in just their voices off-camera may be a detriment to some, but Herisse and Wilson deserve to be in the conversation when we’re talking about the best performances of 2024.
If we are discussing the best performances of 2024, that list would be utterly incomplete without mentioning Ellis-Taylor’s radiant work as Hattie. She is the beating heart of the film. While her screen time runs on the shorter side, her impact on the film reverberates in each frame. Ellis-Taylor knocked the wind out of me as she stared fearlessly down the lens and let every pulse from her pupils—the love she holds for her grandson, the disappointment in herself that she cannot do more, the pain of knowing something is wrong at the Academy. When she hugs the boys, we feel her embrace and, for a moment, feel slightly eased.
Nickel Boys feels like a rarity in today’s cinematic landscape. It asks you to really absorb the feelings, themes, and critiques on screen and sit with them. It washes you in a sensory experience upon initial watch; yet, upon revisiting you see the intent behind decisions more clearly and really begin to dive into this film. It’s simultaneously simple in its presentation, yet utterly complex like a great poem.
Upon subsequent viewings, my love, appreciation, and understanding of Nickel Boys has only grown. It may be the most American film of the year, painting a haunting portrait that unpacks and deconstructs this nation’s ugly history in a visceral, unflinching way. You feel the weight of what Elwood, Turner, Hattie, and the other students of Nickel Academy carried throughout the runtime. Ross proves himself as a true visionary in the making and if this is where he’s at for his first narrative feature, the future of cinema is in excellent hands.
Review Courtesy of Adam Patla
Image Courtesy of AmazonMGM via Saint Louis International Film Festival