Cert – 12, Run-time – 2 hours 20 minutes, Director – RaMell Ross
When wrongfully sent to an abusive reform school in 1960s Florida, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) makes friends with fellow inmate Turner (Brandon Wilson), the pair’s views on the world and their futures shift in relation to each other and what they go through.
I don’t think I know just how Nickel Boys’ first-person perspective camerawork works so well. Perhaps it’s because of how still and gentle director RaMell Ross and cinematographer Jomo Fray keep the camera in each situation, as opposed to the chaotic shaking of an action flick or found-footage horror film. Perhaps the perspective in this case, not just limited to one character, and at times not strictly from what their eyes are seeing, adds to the personal drama at hand – it certainly makes a hug feel more emotionally connected and impactful.
Teenager Elwood (Ethan Herisse) is wrongfully sent to Nickel Academy, a Floridian reform school, after hitchhiking to a campus in what turns out to be a stolen car. There he meets cynical Turner (Brandon Wilson). The two have differing views on both getting out of the school, which is more like a prison for students of colour, and the treatment of African-Americans in society. While Elwood has certainly suffered and witnessed abuse a teacher’s (Jimmie Fails) messages about the civil rights movement, turning away from the teachings provided by the American South, give him a drive and hope that has diminished in Turner during his time in Nickel Academy.
The pair bounce off of each other and there’s something of an exchange of views which grows and develops in both their friendship and personalities. The reform school is rife with abuses, some shown off screen but we hear the effect and it’s just as impactful. Hope fades in and out of view for the characters, we jump forward in time to look at the idea of lingering trauma – the camera sitting just behind characters’ heads as if demonstrating a disconnect with themselves due to their experiences – in some ways these moments have a commonality with fellow Oscar-nominee Sugarcane. Indeed the pair both have strong emotional punches when looking at the generational effects of reform school racism and abuse, seen here in both the events beyond the 60s and in Elwood’s grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), trying to see her grandson but constantly being distanced from him; eventually forming a communication with him through Turner.
The bonds and relationships within Nickel Boys naturally grow from a sense of hope. Hope which is twisted and tangled amongst the various experiences that the characters go through, and those that in some cases – such as Ellis-Taylor’s Hattie – that they’re unaware of. Somehow the camera captures this, the subtle gestures and glances which allude to the characters thoughts and feelings without anything having to be said – carrying that along for almost two-and-a-half hours without feeling like a dizzying gimmick, adding to the emotional impact in both the upfront events and increasingly tight friendship on display, and the lingering sense when we see the course taken in the future. Much of this stems from how we get to know the characters, both in the two central performances full of their own subtleties, and the impact of the first-person narrative full of its own range of tenderly dealt with feelings.
Nickel Boys is a film that gently understands the subtleties of its first-person camerawork to heighten the communicated feelings of the characters and their experiences, pushing the tense hope and emotion throughout before bringing in finely-tuned themes of trauma, all with the same gentle and thoughtful view.
Just A Little Bit Random 