Adapting Colson Whitehead (Underground Railroads)'s Pulitzer Prize winning book of the same name, RaMell Ross -- known for Hale County This Morning, This Evening, his lyrical tapestry of rural Alabamians -- applies the same lyricism to his narrative film debut with Nickel Boys.
Based on a real life case of Dozier School for the Boys, a Florida reform school, where allegations of murder and physical and sexual abuse surfaced dacades later. Ross's treatment of the heavy subject is a mismatch here, and therefore the emotional impact of the tragic and transcending story of perseverance does not quite resonate emotionally.
Strictly seen from first person POV, Ross takes a gamble with Nickel Boys in its presentation of identity swap and audience identification that plays out in the latter part of the film. The unseen protagonist in the first 20 minutes of the film is Elwood, an African American college-bound student in Jim Crow-era Florida, in the care of his loving grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor).
We only get a glimpse of Elwood (Ethan Cole Sharp) reflected on the glass windows and on an iron press. The sequences of Black lives in the 60s are captured in Malick-ian bliss: the colors, softness, consumer goods, and the Christmas lights, all accompanied by Ellis-Taylor's smile. Ross interjects these images with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s speeches as the Civil Rights Movement was heating up, to give this time period some context.
Things take a drastic turn when Elwood accepts a ride to the college from a stranger who happens to drive a stolen car. They are pulled over by police. Just because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, he is sent to the Nickel Academy, a reform school for boys (segregated).
Spencer (Hamish Linklater), who is in charge of the school, and is practically the warden of a jail, tells the incoming juvenile delinquents that if they are good, they will 'graduate' and can rejoin society. If not, they will be punished.
There, Elwood meets Turner (Brandon Wilson), who has a much more cynical outlook of the academy. "You can't rely on anybody. You will have to look out for yourself," he tells Elwood. Our POV changes from Elwood to Turner and we see grown up Elwood (Ethan Herisse) for the first time.
From then on, we switch back and forth from these two characters' point of view. So these two characters are linked. But what does this mean? They endure bullying, and corporal punishment in Nickel Academy. Elwood's prospect of getting out of the place is getting more and more unlikely with his hopes and dreams getting dim.
Ross interjects these scenes with those of a grown-up man with dreads, only seen from the back of his head, in the present day. He owns a moving company and has a girlfriend. He is shown doing research on the now defunct Nickel Academy on his laptop, including the news of mass graves being discovered on the lot of the reform school grounds.
After being punished for attempting to reveal the secrets of the academy (it's unclear what exactly or how he got caught), Elwood and Turner attempt an escape. It is revealed that Turner survives the escape, and takes Elwood's identity to live his friend's aspirations and dreams.
Limiting the POV to two people, and us identifying with those two only, negates all the others who perished in the real reform school it was based on. Not showing or mentioning the nature of the abuse that was going on in there, lessens the emotional impact of the whole ordeal.
Pretty pictures to conjure up the emerging African American middle class and embodiment of unconditional love of the family, captured beautifully by Ellis-Taylor, are all commendable. But for a subject this weighty, the aesthetics in Nickel Boys don't work.
Dustin Chang is a freelance writer. His musings and opinions on everything cinema and beyond can be found at www.dustinchang.com
The film screens at New York Film Festival this week, ahead of its US theatrical release on October 25, via Amazon MGM Studios.