Nickel Boys
Directed by RaMell Ross
Written by RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes
Starring Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Aunjanue Ellis, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger
Release Date December 13th, 2024
Published December 16th, 2024
The experience of Nickel Boys begins quite jarringly. If you don’t know that the film is shot in first person, from the perspective of the main character, it takes a few minutes to acclimate. When the perspective then moves to a second lead character, the film once again forces you to find your bearings. Smartly, and compassionately for an often distracted modern audience, director RaMell Ross introduces the shift in perspective via showing a scene for a second time from this new perspective. It’s a simple yet incredibly smart way to apply a unique way of presenting a movie. And it is this simple and effective approach that provides the foundation for what becomes an incredible movie.
Nickel Boys follows the lives of two young men who meet while being held at a reform school that acts more like a prison for teens. We are first introduced to Elwood ‘El’ Curtis (Ethan Herisse), a smart and politically active young man living in Florida in the early 1960s. El has a bright future ahead of him as one of his teachers has helped him secure acceptance into a historically black college. His tuition is free, all he has to do is get there and that’s where things go wrong. After accepting a ride from a well dressed man in a nice car, El is arrested when it’s revealed that the man is a car thief.
Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media, linked here.
