Nickel Boys is based on the historic reform school in 1960s Florida called the Dozier School for Boys, which was notorious for abusive treatment of students. It explores the story of Elwood Curtis, a young African-American boy who is sent to the Nickel Academy, a fictional version of the Dozier School, after he is falsely accused of a crime. While there, he meets a boy named Turner, and the two form a close friendship as they try to survive the horrors of the school and its corrupt administrators.

The Garden Cinema View:

Colson Whitehead’s source novel The Nickel Boys is arguably his most orthodox narrative and, given the sobering material, we might expect a faithfully sombre adaptation. It’s to director RaMell Ross’ credit that the resulting film is one of the more formally interesting works to emerge from a major studio in recent years. Ross adheres to the impressionistic style that worked so effectively in his dazzling slice-of-life documentary, Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018), deploying POV camera work, document and archival inserts, and changing film formats to create a striking mosaic. It's an undeniably immersive style (this is a period piece that doesn’t feel distanced by art direction), and a creative decision that shields us from the explicit horrors visited upon the bodies of the young black men by the abusive staff of the Nickel Academy reform school. As in the novel, the story is innately powerful, but Ross achieves what the best adaptations should do, and elevates it into a distinctly cinematic achievement.    

Cast:
Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs