Nickel Boys Review: LFF 2024

The horrors of segregation and the aftershocks of slavery are distilled into a single place in RaMell Ross’ Nickel Boys

Nickel Boys is adapted from the Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel of the same name and directed by RaMell Ross, his feature film debut after previous documentary work Hale County This Morning, This Evening. Having only played at a handful of film festivals so far, it is already a strong awards season contender.

In Jim Crow era Florida 17-year-old Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is an idealistic kid from a loving family. Obsessed with the space race and starting to take an interest in the civil rights movement, he wants nothing more than to go to college, get an education and make something of himself. When Elwood finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time, he‘s arrested and taken to the Nickel Academy.  Superficially a reformatory school that serves as an alternative to prison, in reality it’s a place of horrific physical, sexual and psychological abuse; where black students are subjected to hard labour and life-threatening punishment under a tyrannical white superintendent.

At Nickel Elwood meets Turner (Brandon Wilson) the only boy who is initially kind to him, and the two become fast friends. While Elwood with his healthy background remains convinced that the law will protect him and his lawyer will get him out, Turner, a runaway and hustler, tries to convince him that the only way to survive is to learn how to play the game – to recognise that the suffering happening within the school is the same thing that’s happening on the outside, and they shouldn’t trust on outside miracles or saviours.

It’s a tale of hope versus realism in a story that has real tenderness between the two best friends in the face of some truly awful experiences. Herisse and Wilson give brilliant, heart wrenching performances throughout, somehow finding little pockets of light together in what is otherwise a relentlessly bleak story. Another standout is Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor who plays Elwood’s grandmother Hattie, providing a consistently warm, maternal influence in a world that is designed to strip family away.

With Nickel Boys Ross and his cinematographer Jomo Fray have created a truly innovative piece of filmmaking. The entire thing is shot from a first-person perspective, meaning near every scene is viewed directly through the eyes of the person experiencing it. This means the first act is captured entirely through Elwood’s eyes, and then once he meets Turner the POV switches back and fore between the two boys.

It can feel a little jarring as a device – particularly because it means you can’t see the actors dialogue being spoken on screen; you hear it as a voiceover – but once you get used to it the payoff is enormous. Ross centres his characters within the scenes that are going on around them, inviting the audience to experience it as if they were there, rather than viewing it as a passive bystander.

Through the eyes of the characters Fray focuses is on the tiny details of a room with documentary precision – the shake of a hand, the movement of a piece of paper – finding beauty in the mundane and distraction to the cruelty. Though much of the abuse happens off screen as it’s out of frame while a character looks the other way, there’s never any question what is happening. You’re in the thick of it. Just like Elwood and Turner, you instinctively know.

There are a couple of artistic choices that perhaps sway too close to being style over substance in what is already an effortlessly beautiful film. Scenes are intercut with archival media footage that doesn’t always seem relevant to the story – a break from watching the trauma yes, but it also disrupts the narrative at times, cutting into moments where emotions could be left to simmer.

The switching POV’s get a little jumbled as we reach the climax of the film, perhaps robbing the audience of some of the emotional impact of how it all plays out, and the addition of a third POV where one of the boys reflects on his experience at Nickel decades in the future really doesn’t flow well with the rest of the film, but shows a remarkable dedication to remaining accurate to the book.

A fictional story based in real history; Nickel Boys is a tormented, troubling but truthful piece of film making that uses creative framing to transport its audience right into the heart of the story in a way I have rarely experienced before. Stunningly captured and brilliantly performed, it’s a remarkable achievement and one of the essential viewing experiences of the year.

Nickel Boys is playing as part of the BFI London Film Festival 2024. It will be released in UK cinemas on 8th November 2024 before landing on Prime Video