Availability: In select theaters December 13; general release date not yet available. No streaming at this time nor estimates of streaming and purchase dates. See JustWatch here for information on future streaming availability.
On the Dark Side of the Moon
The “Nickel boys” of the title are inmates of the fictional Nickel Academy in Tallahassee Florida, a “reform” school for juveniles. The story, from the best-selling novel by Colson Whitehead, is based on the notorious Dozier School for Boys, also in Florida, which closed in 2011. By the end of 2012, 55 graves had been found on the property. As you’ll learn, dying is one of four ways to get out of Nickel Academy, and not uncommon.
Dying is one of four ways to get out of Nickel Academy, and not uncommon.
It's a straightforward story, of power, corruption, brutality, and racism in the Jim Crow South, set between 1962 and 1967, when Elwood (Ethan Herisse), one of two featured inmates, “ages out”—that is, becomes an adult and is released. The story could have been told in the familiar language of realism, like this year’s “Small Things Like These,” another sordid tale based on a novel, or “The Defiant Ones” (1958, starring Sidney Poitier), an escape epic, fragments of which are shown diegetically in “Nickel Boys.”
A difficult movie to watch and process, though the effort is worthwhile.
But there is nothing straightforward in this film version of Whitehead’s story, directed by Ramell Ross (his first feature) and co-written by Ross and Josslyn Barnes (not by Whitehead). It is a difficult movie to watch and process, though the effort is worthwhile. Early scenes, of hands and limbs and sky and round objects, of a Black woman ironing and replacing a bedsheet, will only on reflection describe Elwood’s idyllic childhood, the fantastical “objects” morphing into the oranges that the Nickel boys pick in the Academy’s orchard, and that are on their plates at every meal. A scene of Elwood’s grandmother Nana (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, the only well-known actor in the film, nominated for an Oscar for “King Richard,” 2021), cutting a cake to celebrate Elwood’s departure for trade school, is nothing short of surreal. One is in Elwood’s head, seeing the world through his eyes.
Above, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor as Elwood's grandmother, seen from
his child's perspective, under the sheets as she changes linen at a hotel.
The last third of the film would seem to be needlessly confusing. It’s not entirely clear, at first, who is shot and killed. And when, twenty years later, we finally see the face of Elwood (Daveed Diggs), the face we see doesn’t resemble the Elwood we knew, and the story he tells—that he’s no longer with his girlfriend—does not fit the facts as we know them. In addition, the film is shot entirely (with the exception of the credits) in square format, suggesting an earlier era, or the power of the filmmaker, or the issue of confinement that dominates the story.
Another odd camera perspective, shown at right, is from above covering panels, some reflective, some missing, as the friends, Elwood (Ethan Herisse, top) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), walk along a street. The camera is focused on them watching themselves.
The core of the film, its middle third, is somewhat more traditional and obvious, while not abandoning the unusual perspective of the early scenes. Elwood meets Turner (Brandon Wilson) in the school cafeteria (even then, the dialogue is odd); the two form a lasting, complex friendship, with Turner the cynical realist, Elwood the freedom-seeking dreamer (outside the school, it’s the era of the Freedom Riders and lunch counter sit-ins); the inmates pick oranges; a boxing match reveals the institution in all its vile ugliness. Yet even these “ordinary” scenes are punctuated with images of space exploration, an American obsession in the 1960s. On reflection (a requirement of understanding this film), these scenes suggest both the possibility of freedom, created by technology, and the reality of a medieval/antebellum-like confinement (“the dark side of the moon,” where there is no communication with Earth, and where Nana can’t see her grandson).
Complicating the entire film is a kind of cinematography we’ve rarely seen, defined by cinematographer Jomo Fray as a “sentient perspective.”
Complicating the entire film is a kind of cinematography we’ve rarely seen, defined by cinematographer Jomo Fray as a “sentient perspective.” “What I think RaMell was after,” Fray has said, “was trying to think of an image that always felt like it was connected to a human body.” What we noticed is how often, in a scene with two characters, one of the faces is not shown. When Elwood, on his way to a trade school program, accepts the ride that will change his life and realizes that his fate is bound to that of the driver, we are deprived of his facial responses. When Nana meets Turner (whom she does not know) on a campus walkway, we see only Nana’s face. When Elwood sits down opposite Turner in the lunchroom and speaks to him, Turner’s face is withheld. When, decades later, Elwood encounters “Chickie Pete” (Trey Perkins), a fellow Nickel Academy survivor, at a local bar, the viewer observes the meeting from a different, still unusual, camera perspective. There’s no shot-reverse-shot; the scene is filmed entirely from behind Elwood’s head.
“Nickel Boys” shifts the interpretive workload onto the viewer, requiring, at almost every turn, an act of imagination,
Unlike “The Outrun” (2024), in which the expressions on Rona’s (Saoirse Ronan) face provide an emotional roadmap to her trauma and healing, the camerawork in “Nickel Boys” shifts the interpretive workload onto the viewer, requiring, at almost every turn, an act of imagination, as if Elwood is something more (or less) than a human being—perhaps a haunted spirit—his trauma too deep to be seen on his face. We are not permitted to sit back and “consume” the narrative; we are forced to be inside it.
Some movie-goers, especially those who have read Whitehead’s book and expect to see it replicated onscreen, will be put off by Ross’s treatment and irritated by the effort required to make sense of it. Instead, we celebrate “Nickel Boys”: ground-breaking, refreshingly original, audacious.
He says: The medium is the message.
She says: We were longing for some inventive filmmaking; we got it.
Date: 2024
Director: RaMell Ross
Starring: Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Daveed Diggs, Trey Perkins
Country: United States
Language: English
Runtime: 140 minutes
Other Awards: 2 wins and 4 other nominations to date
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