Nickel Boys

NICKEL BOYS
2025 | Dir. RaMell Ross | 140 Minutes

"In here and out there are the same, but in here no one has to act fake anymore."

In 1962, black teenager Elwood Curtis is wrongfully arrested in Florida as an accomplice to a criminal. Imprisoned at the Nickel Academy reform school, Elwood quickly befriends the pessimistic Turner while both boys witness and endure horrible abuse. Years later, an adult Elwood confronts his past as authorities discover unmarked graves at site of the defunct campus.

Director RaMell Ross' adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer-winning novel is visually captivating, frequently distressing, and even occasionally suffocating, however appropriate. Filmed primarily from a first-person perspective without ever coming off like a cheap gimmick, Nickel Boys fully immerses its audience in the journey of its pair of main characters, from moments of peaceful serene stillness to intense sequences of pure anxiety. As horrific events gradually unfold at the reform school, the dramatic tension never feels manufactured and never truly lets up. Even as the narrative segues away from Elwood's time Nickel, these flash forward scenes exclusively address the left over trauma.

The work of cinematographer Jomo Fray is exceptionally inspired, both in how it brilliantly captures Elwood and Turner's respective points of views but also in how it conveys deeper meaning whenever the camera shifts out of first-person view. Replaying the moment Elwood meets Turner from Turner's perspective is a clever way to clue the audience in on the fact that the picture will also follow the story of a secondary main character. A dreadful moment when Elwood suffers horrific physical abuse, the perspective shifts to third-person to depict his mental dissociation in a way that's both incredibly artistic and incredibly harrowing. At first viewing, it may be somewhat curious how scenes interspersed through the picture featuring an adult Elwood are exclusively shot from behind his head and shoulders, but it's a particularly profound creative choice in hindsight considering the concluding revelation that the grown man is in actuality Turner, having taken on both Elwood's name and aspects of Elwood's idealistically headstrong perspective.

Leads Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson both deliver engaging, incredibly moving performances. As Elwood, Herisse is the ideal audience surrogate, an intelligent young man rallying against the injustices inflicted upon him, while Wilson is rather charming and convincingly cynical as Turner, a child world-weary beyond his years. The cast also features Daveed Diggs who is heartbreaking as the adult Elwood/Turner, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor embodying love turned to helpless sorrow as Elwood's grandmother Hattie, and a believably detestable Hamish Linklater serving as the face of Nickel Academy's hateful draconian practices.

Nickel Boys is an emotionally devastating experience, one that is equally captivating and challenging. Through outstanding cinematography, the picture drops its audience directly into the perspective of its central characters as they are subjected to one of the most notorious forms of institutionalized oppression that thrived in Jim Crow-era America. The filmmakers present the narrative in a way that, ingeniously only possible through the medium of motion pictures, directly requests empathy from the viewer.

FRAGMENTS

- Just when I was starting to enjoy seeing Hamish Linklater since watching him play the morally conflicted lead on Mike Flanagan's Midnight Mass -- his performance is good in this film, but what an evil, evil character

- I simply do not understand why this film wasn't nominated for the Academy Award for Best Cinematography