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NICKEL BOYS
Director: RaMell Ross Cast: Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Daveed Diggs, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Jimmie Fails, Craig Tate MPAA
Rating: Running Time: 2:20 Release Date: 12/13/24 (limited); 12/20/24 (wider) |
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Review by Mark Dujsik | December 12, 2024 We feel trapped in Nickel Boys—not only within the confines of a reform school in 1960s Florida, but also in the perspectives of two student inmates at that institution. Director RaMell Ross uses first-person points of view for the majority of this film, which initially plays out as disjointed string of memories belonging to an African American boy growing up in Tallahassee and eventually shows us the terrible conditions, the constant fear, and the tragic aftermath of the time spent at Nickel Academy. At first, the perspective here feels like a restraining gimmick, since the only view we have of protagonist Elwood (Ethan Herisse) comes in brief flashes or out-of-focus reflections, such as when the boy is watching a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. on televisions through the window of a shop or the teenager is in a car on his way to the reform school. If we cannot see this character, how do we identify him or with him, since his visage and emotions are on the other side of Ross' camera? If we cannot understand what he is feeling and thinking, the first-person perspective is not a means of gaining empathy with Elwood but a way of introducing distance between him and us. Thankfully, Ross does seem to realize this, and the film, which uses both the point of view and particular moments of when the technique is shattered to increasingly potent effect, provides us with a second perspective for the events at Nickel Academy. It belongs to Turner (Brandon Wilson), another incarcerated pupil at the school, who has been there longer than Elwood, takes the newcomer under his wing, and sees his new friend, it seems, better than the teenager does himself. Indeed, our first real view of Elwood, which comes in a repeated scene of the first time the teen eats at the school cafeteria segregated for Black and Hispanic students, is something of a shock. All we know of the boy he was and the young man he has become until then comes through the looks of others. In the eyes and on the face of his grandmother Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), there are pride, admiration, and unconditional love, because she has raised Elwood for most of his life, has watched him grow into an intelligent and compassionate teen, and knows that there is nothing but promise for her grandson, as he matures through a period of change that will hopefully allow him to do whatever he wants with his life. That course changes when Elwood, trying to make his way to a technical college where he has been accepted for early education before graduating high school, gets a ride from a random man on a country road. As it turns out, the stranger has stolen this car, and in the early 1960s in Florida, the police are quick to charge Elwood with the theft, too. As a minor, he's sent to Nickel Academy, where he will stay as an inmate and a student until the institution's administration decides his sentence is complete or he comes of age. Turner is the first classmate to talk to him as a person—without insults—and to stand up for him—without wanting anything in return. As soon as their meeting plays out from Elwood's perspective, Ross immediately replays the scene from Turner's point of view, and our first real look at Elwood is of a timid, frightened, and defeated teenager. It's not what we were expecting, just as it's probably not how Elwood sees himself. Such moments of revelation occur in this film, adapted from Colson Whitehead's novel by Ross and co-screenwriter Joslyn Barnes, as the gimmick reveals itself to be more than just an exercise in technique. On a story level, there is a very good reason that Ross and cinematographer Jomo Fray play with perspective, which switches back and forth between Elwood and Ross as the narrative of systematic abuse and an uncertain plan to find a way out of the school unfolds. That's difficult to explain without detailing the most important revelations the story has to offer, but there's also a thematic rationale behind this technique and, more importantly, when the filmmakers break free of it. The first instance of such a break comes when Elwood, taken into a basement to be punished along with a group of classmates who beat him, enters the room where he will be lashed by school administrator Spencer (Hamish Linklater). Just before the moment of abuse arrives, the camera leaves the teen's perspective and watches from a fixed angle behind him. In psychological terms, the camera's movement is akin to an act of disassociation in response to trauma. It's not the only time it happens here, either, since the story also follows an older Elwood, played by Daveed Diggs, whom we only see from that fixed position behind him. Before we even know what happens to Elwood and Turner and any of the other students who appear in this tale, we know that whatever happened has forever changed at least one of them in a way that has made life one of being separate from it. The first-person point of view, then, is much more than a gimmick, although it is something of an impediment to fully understanding and experiencing this horrific situation along with the characters for a while. Those early doubts, though, are eventually overshadowed by the potency of this story, based—like Whitehead's book—on a real reform school, and the climactic moment when Nickel Boys shows us why the adult Elwood's perspective is as it is. It's not only the technique that's broken but also the potential, the promise, and connection to an entire life. Copyright © 2024 by Mark Dujsik. All rights reserved. |
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(for thematic material involving racism, some strong language including
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