It takes a minute to adapt to the filming technique RaMell Ross employs in “Nickel Boys.”
Once you realize it’s just a different way of telling a story – a way to force you to pay attention – you hop on and understand the situation much better than you ever could with a more traditional approach.
Ross uses his camera as another character, making you a part of the trauma.
Ethan Herisse stars as Elwood in director RaMell Ross’s "Nickel Boys."
Based on Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Nickel Boys” follows two boys who become friends at the Nickel Academy, a reform school where “survival of the fittest” is more than just a biology lesson. There, Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson) are constantly in the range finder of the school’s abusive administrators. Rather than work with them, the racist officials make their lives miserable and, ultimately, hunt them down. Graves filled with students who didn’t acquiesce litter the campus.
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Meanwhile, others have no clue what’s going on. Among them: Elwood’s grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) who comes to visit and is denied a few moments of connection.
Sadistic and cruel (it’s based on an actual Florida school), the Nickel Academy is where dreams die and racism becomes empowered.
Jomo Fray’s cinematography is key to conveying Ross’s concept. He doesn’t just frame people like they’re subjects in a documentary, he focuses on objects, too. That gives the film a poetic quality and helps you understand who’s who to whom.
Some actors – big name actors – are barely in the film because they’re not the focus of the camera. That’s brave – and vital to the conclusion Ross seeks.
Brandon Wilson stars as Turner in "Nickel Boys."
While Wilson and Herisse are often seen head on, others linger in the background. Even Ellis-Taylor, who’s heartbreakingly good, often lingers in the film’s spaces.
When Ross sends his characters running, you can hear their heartbeats, feel their fear. He shoots from all angles (even on a bicycle) and visually creates something we haven’t seen before.
“Nickel Boys” is a tough watch – largely because we don’t want to admit this kind of activity happened – but it leaves an impression that goes beyond mere images.
Ellis-Taylor and Herisse are Oscar worthy.
And Ross? He’s a force to watch in all forms of filmmaking. “Nickel Boys” is a powerful introduction to the statements he can make with image and light. Remember this film.
Ethan Herisse, left, and Brandon Wilson, right, stars of the new historical drama The Nickel Boys, an adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same talk about their approach to an unorthodox style of shooting and what lesson can be learned from the story.
Movies in a minute with film critic Bruce Miller
Movies in a Minute: "Babygirl"
Movies in a Minute: "The Brutalist"
Movies in a Minute: "Nosferatu"
Movies in a Minute: "A Complete Unknown"
Movies in a Minute: "Nickel Boys"
Movies in a Minute: "Moana 2"
Movies in a Minute: "We Live in Time"
Movies in a Minute: "Smile 2"
Movies in a Minute: "Saturday Night"
Movies in a Minute: "Joker: Folie `a Deux"
Movies in a Minute: "Megalopolis"
Movies in a Minute: "Transformers One"
Movies in a Minute: "Speak No Evil"
Movies in a Minute: "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice"
Movies in a Minute: "Reagan"
Movies in a Minute: "Blink Twice"
Movies in a Minute "Alien: Romulus"
Movies in a Minute: "It Ends With Us"
Movies in a Minute: "Trap"
Movies in a Minute: "Deadpool & Wolverine"
Movies in a Minute: "Twisters"
Movies in a Minute "Maxxxine"
Movies in a Minute "Despicable Me 4"
Movies in a Minute "A Quiet Place: Day One"
Movies in a Minute: "Thelma"
Movies in a Minute: "Inside Out 2"
Movies in a Minute "Bad Boys: Ride or Die"
Movies in a Minute: "Jim Henson Idea Man”
Movies in a Minute: "Summer Camp"
Movies in a Minute: "The Blue Angels"
Movies in a Minute: "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes"
Movies in a Minute: "The Fall Guy"
Movies in a Minute: "Challengers"
Movies in a Minute: "Abigail"
Movies in a Minute: "Civil War"
Movies in a Minute: "Monkey Man"
Movies in a Minute: "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire"
Movies in a Minute: "Late Night With the Devil"
Movies in a Minute: "Snack Shack"
Movies in a Minute: "Cabrini"
Movies in a Minute "Dune: Part Two"
Movies in a Minute: "Drive-Away Dolls"
Movies in a Minute "Bob Marley: One Love"
Movies in a Minute: "Lisa Frankenstein”
Movies in a Minute: “The Greatest Night in Pop”
Movies in a Minute: "Poor Things"
Movies in a Minute: Best Actress nominee Sandra Huller
Movies in a Minute: "Mean Girls"
Movies in a Minute: "Anyone But You"
Bruce Miller is editor of the Sioux City Journal.
