Nickel Boys (2024)

4 Stars (out of 4)

Cents of Self

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

An adaptation of Colson Whitehead's 2019 Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Nickel Boys in any other hands would have been an important and stodgy affair, a case for somber applause and dutiful awards, without much happening in the way of artistry or cinema or pleasure. But thankfully the movie gods handed the task of adapting it to director RaMell Ross and his filmmaking partner Joslyn Barnes (they both wrote the screenplay). Previously, Barnes produced and Ross directed the experimental documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018), which had been nominated for an Oscar. That film, a beautiful piece of work, was more like a poetic observation than journalistic reporting. Miraculously, Ross was able to bring this personal style to the important project Nickel Boys (more, apparently, than the talented Barry Jenkins was able to bring to Mufasa: The Lion King).

Nickel Boys is about young Black man, Elwood (Ethan Herisse), who, on his way to college in the 1960s, catches a ride in a stolen car and is blamed for the actual theft. He is sent to the Nickel Academy reform school in Florida, a brutal, corrupt place where unconscionable violence and racism are the norm. He meets and befriends Turner (Brandon Wilson), and together they begin to navigate the school's ins and outs, and eventually planning an escape. Amazingly, Ross has chosen to tell the story from a literal POV of each character, as in, we see what the character sees. But it's more than that. Ross isn't concerned with getting from point A to point B to point C and bringing the story to a close. He's interested in looking at stuff along the way. This is a film that notices things; it's tuned into the rhythm of life. It takes its time, and finds wonder in a world that is so full of hate and pain.

An amazing opening image shows young Elwood lying in the grass looking at his own hand, a moment of purity and innocence that is mirrored later in the movie in a shot with an opposite meaning. We see a montage of Elwood growing up, hiding under a Christmas tree as his mother drops tinsel on his head, etc. At Nickel, the boys are sent to pick oranges, and Elwood marvels at other pickers stalking around on stilts, to be better able to reach the topmost fruits. Sneaking throughout the story are bits of Martin Luther King speeches and other notable moments and ideas of the Civil Rights Era, and images of a slinking alligator (Black babies were once used as 'gator bait). This approach is simultaneously engaging and distancing, which could be part of the point. But it has also resulted in Nickel Boys having its passionate defenders, as well as others that just can't find their way into it. I'm one of the former, and I think it's an American masterpiece.