In 1962 Jim Crow eraTallahassee, Florida, young African-American Elwood Curtis appears destined for great things in the classroom. His black teacher encourages him to think for himself, rejecting Southern textbooks' slanted view of history.
Elwood is raised by his doting grandmother, who worries that white society will retaliate against him if he participates in the growing Civil Rights Movement. One day, Elwood is accepted into a tuition-free accelerated study program at an HBCU, but while hitchhiking to campus, he is picked up by a man driving a stolen car. The police catch the man and convict Elwood of being his accomplice. Because Elwood is underage, he is sent to the Nickel Academy, a reform school.
Nickel is internally segregated; White students enjoy comfortable accommodations and personal attention from staff, while black students are housed in shabby facilities and the school makes little attempt to educate them. Although the black students are told that they can be released for good behavior, in practice they cannot leave until they turn eighteen, as the school makes money hiring them out as convict labor. In addition, it is implied that some students are sexually abused.
Elwood bonds with Turner, another quiet student. However, while Elwood is inspired by the non-violent and democratic ideals of the Civil Rights Movement, Turner is cynical, expects only mistreatment from society, and urges Elwood to keep his head down. Elwood is bullied and beaten by another student, but the administrators do not help him: instead, they savagely beat both students. Elwood's grandmother scrimps and saves to hire a lawyer to appeal his conviction, but the lawyer runs away with her money, devastating Elwood. A white school administrator who bets on Nickel's annual black-white boxing match quietly executes a black student who either refused or forgot to take a dive.
In flashforwards, the adult Elwood lives in New York City, where he runs his own moving business. He does not appear to be in contact with Turner. He is badly shaken after learning that many unmarked graves have been discovered at the old Nickel campus. Forensic evidence reveals that most of the dead students were black.
Back in the 1960s, Elwood, fed up with his mistreatment, writes up an expose and convinces a reluctant Turner to deliver it to a government inspector. However, nothing happens, and the administrators retaliate by torturing Elwood in the school sweatbox. Turner learns that the school plans to kill Elwood. To prevent this, Turner and Elwood run away from school together. However, without a car, they are quickly caught. Turner escapes into the woods, but Elwood is still exhausted from his ordeal in the sweatbox and cannot keep up with him. He is shot and killed.
A montage shows that Turner safely reached Tallahassee, where he delivered the news of Elwood's death to his grandmother. He then moved North and took on Elwood's name. He marries, builds a stable life, and tries to honor Elwood's legacy by embracing some of his ideals. When the government begins investigating the school, Turner decides to testify about his experiences.
Cast
Ethan Herisse as Elwood, a boy who is sent to reform school after being unjustly convicted for helping steal a car
Ethan Cole Sharp as young Elwood
Daveed Diggs as adult "Elwood," a businessman in New York City
Brandon Wilson as Turner, Elwood's friend at Nickel Academy
In a unique filmmaking approach for viewers to see the plot unfold directly through the eyes of the two protagonists, the film was shot in the perspective of the first-person point-of-view with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio.[11] Ross explained this process in an interview:
"The film is conceived as all one-ers. In one scene, we shot everything from Elwood's perspective, and then everything from Turner's—one from the first hour, and then the other for the second. Very rarely did we shoot both perspectives on a scene, though, because of the way it was written and scripted. We don’t always go back and forth. So it's shot like a traditional film, except the other character is not there. They're just asked to look at a specific point in the camera. Typically, the other actor is behind the camera, reading the lines and being the support to make the other person feel like they're actually engaged with something relatively real. Because they're all one-ers, though, the choreography is quite difficult".[12]
The film was originally set to have a limited theatrical release in New York City on October 25, 2024 and Los Angeles on November 1, before streaming on Prime Video on an unspecified date.[14] However, the film's release was pushed further, with the film now premiered in New York City on December 13 and in Los Angeles on December 20; Amazon MGM Studios is additionally preparing prints on 35mm film for the updated release.[15] It is set to be released by Curzon Film in the United Kingdom on January 3, 2025.[16]
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 86% of 87 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 8.3/10.The website's consensus reads: "Director RaMell Ross' stylistically radical approach to adapting Colson Whitehead's searing novel will be jarring for some, but Nickel Boys' sense of immersion achieves the jaw-dropping effect of walking in another's shoes."[17]Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 89 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".[18]
Lovia Gyarkye of The Hollywood Reporter praised the film and cast performances. She highlighted the unique visual style, cinematography, and Ross's artistic portrayal of the novel's story.[2] Pete Hammond writing for Deadline Hollywood criticized the "overlong" runtime and Ross's use of first person POV-style shooting of one character talking to another that is not seen on camera and only heard. He wrote, "It is a dangling conversation approach that goes quickly from being intriguing to being annoying, pointing to artifice rather than serving the story", and added, "I hope it doesn't prevent some audiences from getting the larger point that we should be talking about".[19] Maureen Lee Lenker of Entertainment Weekly felt a disconnection with Elwood and Turner by the POV approach, explaining, "Both Wilson and Herisse give subtle, affecting performances but the first-person approach means they are often not on camera. Their performances are largely experiential, which makes it difficult to connect with their work on an emotional level".[20]
Carla Renata writing for TheWrap applauded Alex Somers and Scott Alario's music score, casting and performances. She expressed: "This may sound like another Black trauma porn motion picture sanctioned by Hollywood to exploit Black history for financial gain. Thankfully, through the lens of Ross, this narrative doesn't fall into that trap we have seen for decades. Ross [...] brings his unique cinematic sensibility, allowing audiences to experience this type of story from a sensory perspective".[21]IndieWire's David Ehrlich gave the film an "A" grade, emphasizing the film's visual style and storytelling technique.[11] David Canfield of Vanity Fair wrote the film's "avant-garde approach is cannily balanced by its moral urgency and aesthetic rigor. Like last year's The Zone of Interest, it all but reinvents the language for movies about a particular, dark historical chapter, and seems primed to spark conversations about both its content and its form".[12]
Sight & Sound put the film as their seventh pick on their list of the best 50 movies of 2024.[6]
Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of nine novels, including his 1999 debut The Intuitionist; The Underground Railroad (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; and The Nickel Boys, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction again in 2020, making him one of only four writers ever to win the prize twice. He has also published two books of nonfiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.
Aunjanue L. Ellis-Taylor is an American actress. She has received several accolades, including nominations for an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, and two Primetime Emmy Awards.
Fred Hechinger is an American actor. He began his career with supporting roles in such films as the coming-of-age film Eighth Grade (2018), the period drama News of the World (2020), and the psychological thriller The Woman in the Window (2021). Also in 2021, he starred in the Netflix horror The Fear Street Trilogy and the first season of the HBO anthology series The White Lotus.
Danielle Deadwyler is an American actress. She began her career appearing on Atlanta stage, including in the 2009 production of For Colored Girls, and made her screen debut in the 2012 drama film A Cross to Bear. Deadwyler appeared in the primetime soap opera The Haves and the Have Nots (2015–2017), the drama series P-Valley (2020), and the miniseries Station Eleven (2021–2022) and From Scratch (2022).
Joslyn Barnes is a film producer and writer. Known for Bamako (2006), The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011), Cemetery of Splendour (2015), White Sun (2016), Zama (2017), Strong Island (2017) for which she received an Emmy Award for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking and an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature nomination, and Hale County This Morning, This Evening (2018) for which she received an Oscar nomination again for Best Documentary Feature. Barnes also produced and co-wrote the 2024 drama Nickel Boys, along with co-writer and director RaMell Ross.
RaMell Ross is an American filmmaker, photographer, academic, and writer best known for his 2018 documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening and the 2024 film adaptation of the novel The Nickel Boys (2019), the latter of which he directed and co-wrote the screenplay with Joslyn Barnes, for which he won the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Director.
The Nickel Boys is a 2019 novel by American novelist Colson Whitehead. It is based on the historic Dozier School, a reform school in Florida that operated for 111 years and was revealed as highly abusive. A university investigation found numerous unmarked graves for unrecorded deaths and a history into the late 20th century of emotional and physical abuse of students.
Yuri Alexandrovich "Yura" Borisov is a Russian actor. He was the winner of the Golden Eagle Award in 2021. GQ Russia chose him as Actor of the Year in 2020.
The Piano Lesson is a 2024 American drama film directed by Malcolm Washington, who co-wrote the screenplay with Virgil Williams. It is an adaptation of the 1987 play by August Wilson. It stars Samuel L. Jackson, John David Washington, Ray Fisher, Michael Potts, Erykah Badu, Skylar Aleece Smith, Danielle Deadwyler, and Corey Hawkins.
Hard Truths is a 2024 drama film written and directed by Mike Leigh, starring Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Michele Austin, and David Webber. The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival on 6 September 2024, and will be released in the United Kingdom in January 2025. Hard Truths was theatrically released in the United States on 6 December 2024 by Bleecker Street. It received critical praise, with Jean-Baptiste receiving widespread acclaim for her performance, and was named one of the top 10 independent films of 2024 by the National Board of Review.
The 90th New York Film Critics Circle Awards, honoring the best in film for 2024, were announced on December 3, 2024.
Brandon Wilson is an American actor. His roles include The Way Back and Nickel Boys. The latter earned him a Gotham Award in 2024.
Jomo Fray is an American cinematographer. He is known for his work on Port Authority (2019), Selah and the Spades (2020), All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt (2023), and Nickel Boys (2024).
The 37th Chicago Film Critics Association Awards were presented to recognize the best in film of 2024. The nominations were announced on December 10, 2024. The Brutalist received the most nominations with nine, followed by The Substance with seven. Meanwhile, Anora, Nickel Boys and Wicked each received six nominations.
The 45th Boston Society of Film Critics Awards, honoring the best in filmmaking in 2024, were given on December 8, 2024. Unlike previous editions of the awards, runner-up standings were not announced.
The 28th Toronto Film Critics Association Awards, honouring the best films released in 2024, were announced on December 15, 2024.
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