Last Updated on October 21, 2024 by
Nickel Boys is one of the films originating in a work of fiction, specifically a literary fiction published in 2019, written by Colson Whitehead, who also authored The Underground Railroad, another work adapted to a film. Directed by RaMell Ross, most of the sequences are depicted through the first-person perspective of the protagonists – Elwood and later on, his friend, Turner. What is supposed to be a first-person point of view and makes us feel closer to what the characters are experiencing turns out to be an impendent rather than an asset. Rather than completely immersing the audience into their world and lives as intended it disconnects the audience from the characters and the plot, making it more of a showcase of the director’s vision where form overpowers content.
The film premiered at the 62nd New York Film Festival and is scheduled for release in theaters on October 25th. They are taken in the 1960s in Tallahassee, Florida when racial segregation was still rife and the blacks were suffering from the effects of Jim Crow laws. Elwood, portrayed by Ethan Cole as a young boy and Ethan Herisse as he grows up, is a contemplative boy who ends various scenes looking at things in the environment such as trees, leaves, and spider webs. The scenes where the children are holding the camera are captured in a very artistic and dream-like manner by director Ross, which is closer to a director’s desire to make everything look as beautiful as possible rather than what a kid would naturally register. For instance, scenes where sunlight filters through trees or there is a reflection on metal looks unrealistic because they appear too photographic or posed.
Elwood gazes unnaturally at objects and things, especially hands, throughout the whole motion picture, which indicates that the movie’s concern is the attractiveness of the film rather than the representation of the events from Elwood’s perspective. Elwood barely finds a house with his grandmother Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), and his teacher, Mr. Hill (Jimmie Fails), provides him a chance to attend Melvin Griggs Technical College for better education. Unfortunately, on his way there, he hires a car from a stranger involved in an accident with the police. Even though Elwood did not commit any mistake, he is shipped to Nickel Academy, a reform school.
In Nickel Academy, the students are informed that they can become good and be released or act poorly and suffer more consequences. Upon entering the school, Elwood establishes contact with a boy named Turner (Brandon Wilson) and the two start experiencing the rough truth of the school. As they grow closer, the film uses a technique to switch between the two characters’ points of view, and there are some basic dialogues like in most movies. However, Ross has been directing the film and that is where the focus is placed which seems to hinder the development of an emotional attachment to the characters. On the other hand, Herisse and Wilson do infuse some measure of charisma into their performances and the chemistry between Elwood and Turner seems credible despite unobtrusive intervention from the two directing brothers in several instances.
The Nickel Academy depicted in the movie shows the physical suffering of the protagonist and other students. In one instance, Elwood attempts to protect a boy from a bully and gets beaten up for it; he is also whipped for being part of the event. Sure it portrays their suffering but most of the time it does this in a very vague way, not only in the screenplay but also in terms of cinematography. The boxy, 1.33:I found that one of the frames in Ross feels too tight as if something is deliberately concealed. From the film clips old photographs and scenes from other ge*a movies such as The Defiant Ones inserted into the movie, it is evident that the ordeal that Elwood and Turner undergo is real and depicts the ordeal of Black the Black people during the time of the movie.
Elwood looks up to Martin Luther King Jr. and wants to be a part of the Civil Rights Movement while Turner knows that fighting back is perilous and that their only chance of getting out of Nickel Academy is to stay out of trouble. Now and again, the film jumps to the present day where Elwood, played by Daveed Diggs, is an older man now living with the aftermath of Nickel Academy’s abuse in both the 1970s and the 2000s segments of the movie. Elwood is also frequently filmed from the back implying that his past is constantly chasing him. The last scene of the movie is heart-wrenching; this occurs when the adult Elwood meets one of the classmates from his Nickel Academy days who informs him of the fate that befell the other friends.
However, the majority of the film unfolds in the 1960s where it focuses on the lives of Elwood, Turner, and other boys in Nickel Academy, getting into and out of trouble, and securing additional employment from a kindly white employee, Harper. The situation becomes worse when the head of the school, known as Spencer (Hamish Linklater) makes a young boxer known as Griff (Luke Tennie) deliberately throw a fight which he does not do and this makes Spencer even more dangerous.
Finally, as the events unfold in the movie, one can somewhat pass off the overbearing style of direction, but unfortunately, by that time, the adverse effects have been realized. For example, the appearance aspect hinders the audience from fully empathizing with the characters Some of the acting, such as Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor’s, seems somewhat rehearsed, like she is addressing the camera. The two main antagonists are performed by Linklater and Hechinger, and they do not have the screen time to develop their characters and become more than racist caricatures.
Despite this, the fact is that the ending of the movie is more powerful than almost any other part. It employs montage—a combination of images and scenes—that demonstrates the fate of Elwood and Turner with the indication of a significant plot twist in the movie. This final sequence is done in a very subtle manner, linking the protagonist’s as well as the nation’s race, survival, and transformation in a sad yet hopeful way. This could have been a much more moving movie if the rest of it were as balanced as this scene. However, Nickel Boys is disjointed at times and leaves you with a strange disconnect for a film that attempts to elicit emotions like that.
Nickel Boys 2024 Parents Guide Age Rating
Nickel Boys is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Rating (MPA) For thematic material involving racism, some strong language including racial slurs, violent content and smoking.
Nickel Boys PLOT FULL SUMMARY and parents’ guide will be updated closer to the release date (December 13, 2024.), so check back.
