On Screen: “Nickel Boys”

Nickel Boys

Adapted from Colson Whitehead’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Oscar nominee “Nickel Boys,” a meditation on trauma, racism and memory, tells the story of two Black teenagers who meet at an abusive, segregated reformatory in rural southern Florida in the 1960s.

What makes this dramatization unusual is that it’s related from first-person perspectives. At first, the focus is on 16-year-old Elwood (Ethan Herisse), who is sent to Nickel Academy after accidentally hitching a ride in a stolen car that’s pulled over by the police.

Raised by his devoted grandmother Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) who works on the cleaning staff at a Tallahassee hotel, principled, well-mannered Elwood is an honor student, headed for advanced classes at a technical college.

Vulnerable Ellwood is frightened and bewildered by his wrongful detention, subsequent incarceration and brutal beating by Mr. Spencer (Hamish Linklater), the sadistic supervisor, which landed him in the Academy hospital.

Then the narrative is viewed through the eyes of Elwood’s new friend, Turner (Brandon Wilson) from Houston. After streetwise Turner tells Elwood how ‘incorrigible’ boys are shut in the ‘sweat box’ (a hot crawl space under a tar roof) and subsequently murdered with their mutilated bodies buried in unmarked graves, their reactions differ.

Relying on the lawyer hired by his grandmother to plead his case, inquisitive Elwood keeps a meticulous journal, firmly believing justice will prevail, while traumatized Turner insists that the only way for them to remain alive is to escape.

Working with co-writer Joslyn Barnes and cinematographer Jomo Fray, RaMell Ross often utilizes flash-forwards decades later, indicating that the horrifying atrocities at Nickel will eventually be discovered — which is what happened at Florida’s notorious Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys which was closed in 2011.

While Ross’s experimental subjectivity and observational cinematic technique are undoubtedly adventurous, the intertwining visionary points of view are also confusing, particularly when combined with the often-stilted dialogue.