Nickel Boys, the film adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s excellent Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys, takes a huge stylistic swing. Rather than telling the harrowing story of a young Black man’s time at an abusive “reform” school using standard filmmaking language, director RaMell Ross shoots everything from the point of view of his duo of protagonists. I mean this literally: 90% of what we see on screen is what our heroes see with their eyeballs. Their eyes ARE the cameras. Think Hardcore Henry, only unlike that fun little experimental actioner, the visual device is employed here not just as a gimmick, but as a way to ape the narrative devices of the source novel, and to universalize a racially specific experience by placing the viewer directly into the shoes of the audience surrogate.
It’s a pretty big risk to eschew classic filmmaking technique in service of a choice that can only go one of two ways: it will either draw the viewer in, or it will push them away. Luckily, the former is true.
In the 1960s it was not uncommon for wayward American male youths to get sent to a reform school. It’s not a prison, but it’s not not a prison — nobody ends up there by choice. Like any correctional institution, there are systems in place, both official and unofficial, that one must abide by in order to survive their time at the Nickel School for Boys. And as we’ve all been trained by history to correctly assume, the wing of the facility for Black ‘students’ is scarier, more violent, and much less interested in honest-to-god rehabilitation than the wing for white ‘students.’
The book opens with a series of some of the most frightening words ever committed to print. These passages chronicle the present day discovery of human remains under the grounds of the Nickel school. The film takes a different, more surreal approach at putting forth the same info by bouncing back and forth between multiple time periods: before, during, and after our protagonist’s days at the facility. Granted, the book does this too, but not with as much regularity as the film. Yet by the end we do indeed get the same large picture, as well as the heavy cloud of doom that hangs over the proceedings, borne of the knowledge of what hides in the walls and eventually the grounds of Nickel.
The film follows Elwood (Ethan Herisse), a young man who ended up at the school through no fault of his own. In fact, Elwood is an ideal candidate to break free from the systemic binds that limit so many of his peers. After showing an aptitude for education, Elwood is invited to take a handful of classes at a nearby college while still in high school. He hitches a ride to campus one day, but the driver, a stranger to Elwood, is soon stopped by the police. It turns out the car is stolen and Elwood is found guilty by association. It’s a tale as old as America itself: a Black man does everything right, eschews every stereotype, and works his ass off to become an upstanding contributor to society … and it’s not nearly enough to clear the hurdle of racism.
While at the school, he meets Turner (Brandon Wilson) and the two become fast friends. Turner has been to Nickel in the past, and he’s able to give Elwood the real rules of engagement. At the same time, Elwood, the bright young man he is, becomes a sort of aspirational figure to the rougher-edged Turner.
The film bounces between the trio of timelines, masterfully connecting present day moments of triggered, dark nostalgia to thematically related experiences at the school. Ross uses the unique POV visual device to jump between characters the way the source novel jumps between narrators. It’s seamless, and before long you forget that this novel lens even exists. While I did personally find it beneficial in a plot sense to read the novel first, I don’t think that it’s a requirement (although you should read it — it’s very good). Little details may be missed, but most are only valuable in a text format anyway. I could see some viewers walking away unsure of certain whens and wheres of the plot, but it’s unimportant anyway. No one will fail to grasp the film’s thematic intentions. If movies are truly empathy machines, Nickel Boys makes it nearly literal.
Both the film and novel only lightly use their framing devices as a way of camouflaging a hard-to-mask, easy-to-predict narrative flourish, which may read to some as a failure of structure, but — and I say this carefully to avoid spoiling — there’s an effective feeling of dread that comes with telegraphing what a weaker film would have bent over backwards to treat as a reveal. And it’s a dread that has become a standard dark spot in the heart of any socially conscious American. To hope for the best; to fight for the best, but never to expect it.
Yet for all of Nickel Boys’ upsetting and necessary frankness, it’s a film filled with joy. There’s a message here about the infectious nature of love and hope, and how such things may prove to merely be small weapons in the fight against oppression, while also proving to be the only weapons capable of delivering permanent damage to the bigotries that are hard-coded into the fabric of our nation.
And if you divorce the film from its wonderfully realized characterizations and its thoroughly considered thematic heft, it’s also just an impressive piece of craft. I legitimately do not know how Ross managed to pull off the vast majority of shots in this movie. It’s never gaudy or showy, but the results feel impossible. When it comes time to pick this year’s Best Director Oscar, I would hope that Ross is given consideration. His work pushes the form forward. Unfortunately, it will probably go to Jon M. Chu for Wicked, a movie that regresses both the art and science of film so far that it ruined my weekend.
Directed by RaMell Ross
Written by RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes, based on the book by Colson Whitehead
Starring Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Ethan Cole Sharp
Rated PG-13, 140 minutes
