Artist-turned-director RaMell Ross’ beautiful, innovative, and moving adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel NICKEL BOYS is an immersive, emotional experience that uses a POV camera to put you into the first-person experience of two young Black boys, Elwood and Turner, and the bonds of friendship that grow between them after they meet at a Jim Crow-era reform school in Florida, a brutal place known as the Nickel Academy.
Although this is RaMell Ross’ first film, the artist’s directorial debut is strong, showing an unexpected mastery of cinematic art. NICKEL BOYS is a remarkable film, a moving human drama about childhood friendship in the Jim Crow South between two very different Black boys who nonetheless form a powerful bond. Scenes have a painterly beauty, unsurprisingly for this artist-turned-director, but Ross shows a firm hand in editing and pacing the film, rather than just indulging in visual beauty. The result is something magical, a dream-like experience of childhood friendship but set, with unblinking truth, in the horror of a Jim Crow reform school in the Deep South, as the early Civil Rights era dawns.
This first person POV approach seems a strange at first, as we never see our main character except in occasional reflections, but the technique creates a uniquely immersive feeling. The film stays with this technique throughout, although it switches the viewpoint to the other boy part way through, after the boys meet. The film repeats scenes just seen from one boy’s point-of-view, to show them from the other boy’s view, which creates insights and draws us even deeper into their world.
After a brief framing device scene with one of the now-grown boys, although we don’t know which one, the story begins with the childhood experience of Elwood Curtis, following him from early childhood. After the opening scene, the film truly begins its story with glimpses, through infant eyes, of Elwood Curtis’ earliest memories. The unusual childhood first-person point-of-view technique recalls the early scenes of TREE OF LIFE with the same magical feeling of the early life memories re-experienced. Set in Florida before the pre-Civil Rights era, we see events through child’s eyes, with fleeting glimpses of babyhood memories of parents, who quickly disappear and are replaced by scenes of loving care by his grandmother Hattie (a wonderful Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor ), who raised him. Young Elwood (Ethan Cole Sharp ) is a sweet, well-behaved and smart child who does well in school, and Hattie creates a warm, stable home for him, although they have little money. A teacher recognizes Elwood’s potential, and recommends him for a scholarship to a technical college. On a two-lane rural road has Elwood makes his way to the new school, something terrible happens. Through one youthful misstep, Elwood is sent to a harsh reform school in the Jim Crow Deep South, the Nickel Academy.
Director Ross makes the switch after the boys meet at the Nickel Academy. In a masterful stroke of cinematic technique, part of that experience at Nickel is told from the viewpoint of one boy, but it then spun around and retold from the viewpoint of the other boy. It is an emotionally powerful move, as well as a visually beautiful one, that brings us deeper into this close friendship and the inner lives of both boys.
When Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson) meet at Nickel, they couldn’t seem more different. Elwood is shy, bookish, and a bit sheltered, raised in a warm. supportive, stable home by his protective grandmother, while Turner is street-wise, toughed a bit by a hard-knock life, and poorly-educated. Yet the two boys find a common bond, with Turner drawn to Elwood’s knowledge, his very different loving family upbringing, and especially his stubborn refusal to yield his humanity and decency in this dark place despite it’s brutality. Elwood relies on Turner’s street-wise ways to help him survive and navigate the very unfamiliar waters of reform school life. The boys help each other, teach each other, and develop an unbreakable friendship.
The Nickel Academy houses both Black and white boys, but in separate and very different facilities, with very different treatment. The story takes place in the Jim Crow South but it is also against the backdrop of the dawning of the Civil Rights era.
Young Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson as Elwood and Turner, respectively, are excellent in their roles. But a standout performance is Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, in her supporting role as Elwood’s grandmother Hattie. As Hattie, she is Elwood’s rock and his only adult advocate in this harsh world. Although the reform school does its best to exclude her and keep her away from Elwood, she will not be deterred, in her relentless efforts to reach and help her beloved Elwood.
The photography is outstanding, making the most ordinary settings glow with unseen beauty. The editing and pacing is perfect, keeping the story moving but giving the actors the space to do their work and do it well.
The immersive period drama NICKEL BOYS is one of human warmth, heartbreaking and ultimately hope, with moving portraits of friendship and familial love that transcends time or place, while offering social commentary on a pivotal point in history. The story’s end has its shocks but it ends on a note of hope and healing for the future.
NICKEL BOYS opens Friday, Jan. 17, in theaters.
RATING: 4 out of 4 stars
