The most impressive feat a film can pull off is to convince its viewers they are seeing something wholly original. Even more impressive is when a film can accomplish this while adapting a work, making it definitionally unoriginal.
Despite being adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, RaMell Ross’ “Nickel Boys” feels entirely fresh. The story follows a young man named Elwood who is unjustly chartered to Nickel Academy after n a traffic stop incident in segregated Tallahassee, Florida.
There are two timelines at play. That of Elwood’s experience at Nickel Academy, where he becomes close with another boy named Turner, and an adult Elwood considering testifying in a growing case against the long-shuttered academy.
When reading about the horrific abuse and torturous conditions these teenagers — and sometimes young children — were forced into, I struggled to imagine how the violence would be depicted on screen. Whitehead’s novel is a forceful, grisly work at times, and depicting it on screen seemed challenging.
Ross is a visionary filmmaker, though, so his film adapts the novel in a way greater than I’ve ever seen accomplished. Instead of worrying about nailing every plot point as you remember — it excludes a few — the film captures the feeling of the story.
The entire film is shot from the first-person perspective, meaning the camera adopts the eyes of Elwood and Turner the entire time. Whitehead’s story is one of empathy, so it is necessary for the audience to feel as connected as possible to Elwood.
Bolstering a background in experimental and documentary film, Ross is the perfect filmmaker to tackle this. His ambitious use of technology is a sight to behold in “Nickel Boys.” I was wowed within the first few minutes, and that feeling never dissipated.
Amid the opening few scenes as I settled into the film’s often dreamlike rhythm, I felt as though I was discovering a new cinematic language. I could feel my understanding of what movies could do expanding in real time.
The difficult technique involved in shooting the film has created a lot of buzz in the filmmaking world. Before going into the film, I was worried the perspective trick would give me a headache or make me nauseous. Instead, I clicked with the choice immediately and felt incredibly emotionally invested in Elwood.
One scene halfway through the film finds Elwood once again unjustly punished for his actions. In the scene, Elwood is beaten by one of the white headmasters at the academy, but the camera breaks its rule.
Instead of showing us his perspective, the camera takes us away from Elwood and forces us to face static darkness. Only the sounds of a belt cracking against flesh break through the overwhelming, visceral static. The speakers in the theater boomed with the whirring of the furnace Elwood leans on, and the unsettling score blared into my skull.
I felt physically shaken by the scene and ultimately incredibly impressed by how successful the film’s stylistic choice had turned out. If a film can truly, deeply impact me in the way this single scene in “Nickel Boys” did, I would consider that a success.
The only other times we leave Elwood or Turner’s point of view is with interstitched segments of news footage. We see Martin Luther King Jr. speaking in Washington, D.C., flashes of advertisements, and eventually footage of the Moon landing.
The last 20 minutes of the film shockingly revolve around this visual motif of the Moon landing. I won’t give away what is going on between these clips, but I found this choice incredibly impactful. Ross shows us the new heights of the American dream — in the 1960s when the story is set — with the harrowing realities of the American experience for young Black men.
Not since “The Zone of Interest” have I witnessed an audience sit in complete, stunned silence once the credits rolled. “Nickel Boys” is an incredibly special film. Bold in its artistry, it elevates an already emotionally devastating story to new cinematic heights.
“Nickel Boys” is now playing at FilmScene in Iowa City.