NICKEL BOYS
NICKEL BOYS
Directed by RaMell Ross
If you watched the Academy Awards last week, there might've been a film (or 3) that you had never heard of. Despite two major nominations for Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay, NICKEL BOYS was barely mentioned or represented. A damn shame, as it's a tremendous piece of art and one of the best films of the last year.
Taking place in Jim Crow-era Florida, teenager Elwood is a smart focused student with a bright future ahead of him. He lives with his grandma who wants him to keep his head down and avoid the growing civil rights protests, for fear of retaliation. It doesn't matter, despite his excellent record, one day Elwood is in the wrong place at the wrong time and instantly his future is crushed. Sent to the segregated Nickel Academy reform school, he meets fellow teen Turner and they begin a beautiful friendship all while trying to survive the brutality of Nickel Academy.
What sounds like a pretty straightforward, maybe even "Oscar bait" story is completely put to rest almost instantly. The entire film is told through POV shots of our 2 main boys, a highly stylized choice that gives the picture an unexpected vibrancy. There are stretches where it's just images and music, or old recordings of civil rights protests and songs. In his narrative feature film debut, director RaMell Ross displays a confidence in his images not usually seen. Sometimes it has the feeling of a tone poem, as we switch POV between the two boys. The N-word is never uttered once and there is plenty of implied violence but nothing is ever actually shown. A choice myself (and I suspect many others) applaud.
The incredible Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor has only a handful of scenes as Elwood's grandmother, but her presence is felt throughout: A proud, beautiful woman, doing her best for her innocent grandson caught in the mangler of U.S. racism. Her performance will stay with me for a long time.
There's still so much to be praised about NICKEL BOYS! Particularly the gorgeous cinematography and tight editing. The style choices made could have easily been too distracting or executed poorly, but the vision was there. One wonders if the Academy would've eaten this up more if it was more like the stereotypical films we've seen of the past.
It's way better than ANORA.
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Out of 4
