Film Review: NICKEL BOYS: A Powerfully Rendered, Wrenching Film with Top Caliber Acting and Direction [NYFF 2024]

Nickel Boys Review

Nickel Boys (2024) Film Review from the 62nd Annual New York Film Festival, a movie directed by RaMell Ross, written by Joslyn Barnes, Colson Whitehead and RaMell Ross and starring Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Sam Malone, Najah Bradley, Legacy Jones, Jimmie Fails, Bill Martin Williams, Taraja Ramsess, Peter Gabb and Zachary Van Zandt.

Director RaMell Ross creates an intriguing story-telling technique to tell a harrowing story in the successful but disturbing new film, Nickel Boys. This film is about two Black boys, Elwood (mostly played by Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson) who meet and become friends at a reform school in Tallahassee, Florida where horrific things are taking place. Ross uses point-of-view camera angles to tell a story that cuts deep with terrifying intensity and authenticity, employing showy film-making techniques which sometimes feel documentary-like in nature. Based on the book by Colson Whitehead, Nickel Boys is the type of movie that really gets under one’s skin and can stay there for days with its vivid intensity and frightening imagery.

Elwood and Turner develop a bond that is skillfully conveyed by the director whose style of film-making could frustrate viewers at first. There’s a purpose for the nature of the POV camera work that will make more sense the deeper one gets into the movie.

As the reform school’s operation techniques become clear, it seems that some of the people who come to the facility are never heard from again as the film reveals devastating secrets that are shocking in their excesses. One particular scenario that stands out as one of the most wrenching parts in the picture comes when a young Black fighter is asked to throw a fight and lose in order to make money for some shady characters within the story line. Imagine the consequences when things don’t go as expected. These scenes are absolutely filled with nerve-wracking tension that is built masterfully by Ross.

Elwood’s grandmother, Hattie, is played by the always formidable Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor. Hattie is an emotional and complex character who has integrity and wishes for justice to be served through doing things such as visiting a lawyer for help in her matter. However, Hattie finds that there is more complexity to Elwood’s situation than meets the eye. Ellis-Taylor never disappoints and makes this performance her own as she commands the audience’s attention whenever she appears on-screen.

The old film with Sidney Poitier, The Defiant Ones, is used as a motif in the film with that movie’s story line of escaped convicts used to parallel the story of Elwood and Turner. This choice was inspired and helps build and construct some of the themes that are embedded in the new picture to better effect.

Herisse and Wilson have charismatic on-screen presences that manage to carry many of the scenes in the movie. Elwood and Turner are well-developed and both actors add subtext to their characters that can truly make the viewer understand them, not only as characters but as potentially real people. These two performers play off each other with great precision.

This movie builds to a climax which is heart-wrenching to behold. When the characters of the film at one point manage to get on bicycles as a possible escape to their otherwise dead-end situation, the movie really gains momentum as it leads to an ending that will leave audiences with some extremely difficult things to consider regarding how the events that happen here had managed to occur.

There are also sequences which involve the display of the back of an adult man’s head and he comes to talk to another man at a bar and the revelation of who these characters are makes for some interesting plot developments. Other scenes include distorted images of certain people at one point, the use of Apollo 8 footage and the plight of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This film also shows us real archival footage of the situation that the film portrays. By alternating different plot threads, the film ultimately becomes more and more powerful as it interweaves events of different time periods seamlessly in unique and fascinating ways.

While Nickel Boys is a very difficult film to watch, it packs a wallop and stands as a testament to the things that happen or have happened in real-life which have no right occurring in America. Ross emerges as a film-maker whose vision needs to be seen and his very distinct picture tells a story that not only needs to be told but can actually make an impact on the way we move forward in the world today as current events only make the possibilities the fictional aspects of the film portray more frightening. Nickel Boys is an accomplished film and a genuinely intense experience all the way through.

Rating: 8.5/10

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