Nickel Boys

I would've expected an adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel The Nickel Boys to be straightforward, sober, devastating.  It told a tragic story in such a fashion, quite different than some of the author's earlier work.  Director RaMell Ross had other ideas.  His take, 2024's NICKEL BOYS remains devastating, never downplaying the seriousness of its scenario, but takes a decidedly dreamy, arthouse approach to storytelling.  Enough to make his film feel like a Terrence Malick piece.  This did not entirely dilute the power of the source material, but at times did create a chilly distance from the characters, ones we got to know intimately in the novel. 

Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is a young Black student in early '60s Tallahassee.  He's intelligent and thoughtful, with a growing activism that concerns Hattie, his grandmother and guardian (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor).  His future looks bright as he is accepted into a tuition-free university with an accelerated curriculum.  But Elwood picks the wrong car as he hitchhikes to campus, one its driver had just stolen.  The young man will be charged as an accomplice and sent to reform school, Nickel Academy.

The Blacks are separated from the whites.  One Hispanic kid is bounced between them.    Life will be harsh for those of color.  Education is minimal.  Beatings are regular, even if one keeps his nose clean. Each will be subject to what amounts to slave labor.  Elwood suffers, yet maintains his pacifism, a contrast to the one friend he makes at Nickel, Turner (Brandon Wilson), a cynic who knows violence is always a breath away. 

RaMell shoots NICKEL BOYS, which he co-adapted with Joslyn Barnes, in first person point of view.  We see the events through the eyes of either Elwood or Turner.   Very rarely do we see them in the same frame. It is disorienting for a minute, but became more urgent and intimate as the film progressed.  Likewise, it tends to push us away.  Make us feel if we're watching a highlight reel of someone's memories.  This was probably the intent, as the film will flash forward ten, twenty, and fifty years ahead at times,  following one of the two boys as an adult.  We only see him from the back.  When you learn the film's twist (no less potent here than in the novel), you'll understand why. 

The film plays like a dream, filled with old clips of MLK and video and audio images from NASA.  Some sped up footage.  Flights of fancy.  Captures of nature.  It's arresting, but ultimately I would've preferred less of that and more of the characters, here essentially seen as ghosts rather than flesh and blood.  There is so much inherent drama at Nickel that I feel the film misses.  We do get the sense that the place is awful, but Whitehead really made it feel like the hell on Earth it was (based on a real school in Marianna, Florida).

I appreciate that NICKEL BOYS refuses to play like yet another pat Hollywood drama about racism.  Something maybe endorsed by Oprah and filmed by Lee Daniels.  This could've easily been an earnest but disposable workmanlike drama.   My rating for this film, high as it is, would've been higher if I hadn't read the book.  Isn't that often the case? I wouldn't have guessed such an outcome with this film. 

To reiterate - what I find especially interesting is how Whitehead, whose novels such as The Intuitionist were dense and (for some) impenetrable, opted for a clearer style in this book.  RaMell rather felt it necessary to create something more eccentric, something that does feel groundbreaking cinematically at certain moments but also highly conflicted.