To see yourself, you cannot use a reflection. You need another person, a friend, and if you spend enough time with someone, you change each other and begin to see the world through each other’s eyes. “Nickel Boys” (2024) is an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s novel, which depicts this phenomenon. During the sixties, though he committed no crime, the studious, idealistic Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse) arrives at the Nickel Academy, a Florida reform school rife with abuse and corruption. The practical and kind Turner (Brandon Wilson) befriends Elwood and cautions him against trying to change the world like Martin Luther King Jr. otherwise he could end up killed. In the twenty-first century, Elwood sees that Nickel Academy’s wrongdoing is exposed, but there is no mention of Turner. How did Elwood survive, and what happened to Turner?
If you do not enjoy abstract art, “Nickel Boys” is going to be challenging for you. The film is shot from the main characters’ point of view except the camera occasionally shoots from behind Elwood’s head towards the end of their stay at Nickel Academy and in the twenty-first century. There is a narrative, but it is not linear and mostly gets depicted through the equivalent of a series of still life photographs. The story’s logic is lyrical. Even seasoned, artsy fartsy film reviewers will feel compelled to see it repeatedly to comprehend this vision. It is a rigorous work that demands much from its audience, which will make it unwatchable for many, but for those who are willing to branch out of their comfort zone, it can be a rewarding though still difficult experience. It is art, not entertainment. Film is an empathy machine, and by using this style, movie goers will have no choice but to see the world through Elwood and/or Curtis eyes. Even moments that lack clarity are thoughtful and deliberate.
It is director and cowriter RaMell Ross’ first feature film after receiving accolades for documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening.” (2018). Cinematographer Jomo Fray’s characteristic shooting style from “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt” (2023) is recognizable in this film. If you are familiar with these films, then you know what you are in for, but if you are not, describing how the characters see the world should help. The film is a literal depiction of their frame of mind. Curtis’ world is filled with a fraction of the following: treetops, television clips of NASA’s achievements, the Civil Rights movement. With the advent of the latter two, he believes that he can change the world, and anything is possible. Like any young person, he is innocent and naïve. Ross only gives glimpses of Ross through his reflection. He is not good at connecting with people, but he succeeds with his grandma Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, “Origin”), his teacher, Mr. Hill (Jimmie Falls), and a girl that he has one date with (Gabrielle Simone Johnson). Mr. Hill bears the scars of the world outside his relatively safe bubble, but even there, an image of an alligator lurking signifies his awareness that danger is near. People used to throw Black babies in the water as alligator bait. Still his mind is not only dominated with this nostalgic past, but also images from television. During moments of peril, the soundtrack is no longer diegetic, but consists of atonal, dissonant beats that could work in a horror movie or a film like “Zone of Interest” (2023).
Introduced after thirty-seven minutes, Turner’s perspective consists of the present, not past. He looks at the big picture and his frame of vision contains the whole person or at least faces. Through Turner, we finally get to see Elwood, who dominates most of the film. The implication is that unlike Elwood, Turner’s childhood was less idyllic, and he had to see the world clearly to survive without adult caregivers. It is almost as if Turner did not exist before he met Elwood because he had a life without nurturing love, and no one saw him. Despite Turner’s tutelage, Elwood attracts the wrong attention from bullies and the academy’s officials, who engage in systematic childhood torture, which is distinguished from child abuse because physical and psychological injuries are prolonged and repeated to establish domination and control over the child. Turner and Elwood are teenagers, children.
While “Nickel Boys” is a work of fiction, there is a real-life counterpart, the Florida School for Boys or Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, which inspired Nickel Academy and existed from January 1, 1900 through June 30, 2011. To classify the era as Jim Crow, which allegedly ended with the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act in 1965, is an oversimplification that erases the fact that torture is timeless and existed in the twenty-first century. This timelessness cannot be dismissed as the distant past. Like the Magdalene Laundries and Native American boarding schools, the children at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys endured similar suffering. The added complication was that this place kept children who were Black, white and other races, so while everyone was tortured, the degree varied based on the child’s perceived race. The main advantage of the abstract shooting style is that it enables Ross to never make the torture explicit or graphic while making the implication clear. It brings awareness without offering titillation to the wrong kind of movie goer. Also it allows moments to have time slips where a child in a bed briefly looks like his future adult self or in the twenty-first century, a man suddenly looks like himself when he was a child at Nickel. People exist in all time simultaneously as we do in our head, and trauma freezes people in the mental state when it was inflicted. The archival footage, home videos and montages of news articles anchors this fictional story in history.
Though “Nickel Boys” is told in an unconventional way, with the detriment of hindsight, some tropes become apparent, specifically the gifted Black child as the most vulnerable to violence. Movies like “Cooley High” (1975) and “Boyz n the Hood” (1991) solidify the gifted and Black man as a tragic, doomed figure. The denouement reveals a huge twist that explains the reason for the camera position not being shot from a character’s point of view, and it is reminiscent of a twist in a popular, prestigious Emmy award winning dramatic television series. While this twist is probably faithful to the novel, it is also the only aspect of the story that feels constructed and verging on extraneous unlike the lengthy runtime of two hours twenty minutes, which sounds daunting, but is warranted. This twist speaks to these children surviving a war that the state conscripted them into.
“Nickel Boys” is for hard core cinephiles but may be tough for regular folks to see if they do not see a lot of movies and usually stick to mainstream, popular fare. It is a long, abstract film about a tough topic and focuses on people of color. One of those characteristics would be enough to turn the average person off but combined it could be lethal. Why should an ordinary person watch it? If you enjoy mainstream movies but want to experience something that you have never seen before and are becoming tired of average entertainment, this film is for you. It could open new worlds to you. To call it groundbreaking may be an understatement. If you enjoy American period films set in the fifties and sixties or enjoy learning about history through film from an average person’s perspective, then this film is for you. See it alert and bring your sense of curiosity.
“Nickel Boys” is a multidimensional puzzle that is worth solving. Ultimately it is a story of friendship and its power to bestow immortality. Romantic and familial love has plenty of cinema champions that represent the idea of soulmates whereas this story offers a more serendipitous alternative under the most severe conditions.
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S
The twist in “Nickel Boys” come right out of “Mad Men.” When Elwood and Turner try to escape, Harper (an unrecognizable Fred Hechinger) or one of the people chasing them kills Elwood. Turner escapes and assumes Elwood’s identity, which is why the present never shows his face until the end, and it is shot from behind his shoulders. It also explains the exchange between adult Turner and another person who survived.
