Based on the acclaimed novel by Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys is one of the films that would have easily passed me by completely if it hadn't been put in competition for the Best Picture in the 2025 Oscars. I had no idea what it was about, but a quick browse to check the reactions to it saw a lot of discussion about the shooting style making it a more emotional and impactful experience. I would have to respectfully disagree with a lot of those people.
Ethan Cole Sharp plays Elwood, a young black boy with a bright future ahead of him. That all changes when he is hitch-hiking one day and ends up in a stolen car. Although Elwood didn't know the driver, nor did he know that the car was stolen, he is convicted of a crime and sent to the Nickel Academy, an infamous reform school. With clear segregation in the school, and clear preferential treatment for the white students who live there, Elwood soon finds out that he'll be stuck there for a while. The school makes money by using the black students for labour. Elwood befriends Turner (Brandon Wilson), and the two try to keep their spirits up as they plan the time when they hope to one day be free, which may be a lot sooner for Elwood if his grandmother (Hattie, played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) can scrape together the money for the right lawyer.
Directed by RaMell Ross, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Joslyn Barnes, Nickel Boys is a superb tale, and one that is very much worthy of a film that should stir up strong feelings and remind people of how stacked the US system is, and remains, against black people. This film does that, it cannot really fail to affect all but the stoniest of viewers, but it is rendered slightly less effective than it could have been with the choice to shoot things mainly from the POV of the main characters. Maybe it's just my own inflexibility, but that style in modern movies has been used too often for content that usually resembles videogame action, and having it here does the opposite of drawing you close to the characters, in my experience. I felt as if there was a barrier there, something always stopping me from feeling everything I wanted to be feeling. It was a distraction, and it didn't even feel consistent enough to be worth the technical effort.
I will say that Sharp, Wilson, and Ellis-Taylor do good work, but even the performances are difficult to fully judge through that mesh created by the shooting style. Hamish Linklater is effective as the sadistic man overseeing the running of the reformatory, and Jimmie Fails makes a strong impression as Mr. Hill, the schoolteacher who first sees how bright Elwood is, and tries to help him on the way to a better future, but too many other people are only half-glimpsed or shown bumping into the leads like some runaway balloons. That keeps the focus on Elwood and Turner, so it isn't a terrible decision, but I cannot help thinking, once again, that some different choices could have given us a richer, and even more powerful, experience.
I want to read the book this was based on, and (by sheer coincidence) I am currently enjoying something similar, albeit with a supernatural twist, called "The Reformatory", written by Tananarive Due, but I don't want to revisit this film. And while I would still tentatively recommend it to others, I know that they may have to keep working hard to look beyond the distracting shooting style in order to stay focused on the most important ups and downs of the main storyline.
6/10
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