Nickel Boys

There is a specific, heavy silence that fills a room after the credits roll on a film that doesn't just want you to watch, but demands you inhabit a different skin. Most historical dramas are content to let you sit comfortably in the balcony of history, looking down at the tragedy with a safe, panoramic view. But RaMell Ross (the visionary behind Hale County This Morning, This Evening) decided to throw the balcony away. In Nickel Boys, he uses a first-person POV technique that essentially turns the camera into the eyes of our protagonists.

I watched this while wearing a pair of slightly damp socks—I’d stepped in a puddle on the way to the theater—and that persistent, cold discomfort strangely synced up with the mounting dread of the film. It’s an immersive, often claustrophobic experience that feels less like a "movie night" and more like a haunting.

The Sight of Survival

The story, adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, follows Elwood (Ethan Herisse), a bright, idealistic Black teenager in Jim Crow-era Florida whose dreams of college are derailed by a cosmic injustice. He’s sent to the Nickel Academy, a reform school that is essentially a gilded cage built over a graveyard. There, he meets Turner (Brandon Wilson), a cynical, street-smart foil who has already learned the school’s most important lesson: the only way to survive is to keep your head down and your heart closed.

What makes this film a radical departure from the "prestige drama" formula is the cinematography by Jomo Fray. We see what Elwood sees. We see the back of Turner’s head as they walk through the tall grass. When a character speaks to Elwood, they look directly into the lens—directly at us. It’s a daring gamble that makes most other modern dramas look like they’re playing it safe in the shallow end. For a contemporary audience used to the hyper-kinetic "shaky cam" of action flicks or the polished sheen of Netflix originals, this is a total recalibration of the senses. It forces an intimacy that is both beautiful and deeply unsettling.

Performances Behind the Lens

You might think that a POV film would limit the actors, but Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson deliver some of the most soulful work I’ve seen this decade. Because we often only see them in mirrors or through the eyes of the other, their vocal performances and physical presence become paramount. Ethan Herisse captures Elwood’s initial Boy Scout optimism—that belief that if you just follow the rules, the world will be fair—and we feel its slow, agonizing erosion.

Then there’s Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor (who was so brilliant in King Richard) as Elwood's grandmother, Hattie. Even when she’s just a voice or a partial figure in the frame, she carries the weight of generations of Southern endurance. On the flip side, Hamish Linklater (fresh off his terrifying turn in Midnight Mass) plays Spencer, the school’s authority figure, with a quiet, bureaucratic coldness that is infinitely scarier than any mustache-twirling villain. He doesn’t need to scream; he just needs to exist. Gralen Bryant Banks and Fred Hechinger round out a cast that feels lived-in, avoiding the "historical reenactment" stiffness that plagues so many period pieces.

A Masterpiece in the Streaming Shuffle

It’s a bit of a tragedy that Nickel Boys had such a quiet box office run. In our current era of franchise saturation and "content" being shoveled onto streaming platforms like coal into a furnace, a $23 million experimental drama is a rare beast. Plan B Entertainment (the folks behind Moonlight and 12 Years a Slave) clearly prioritized the art here over the ROI, and while the $3 million box office looks grim on a spreadsheet, the film’s "now" factor is undeniable.

This isn't just a history lesson; it’s a conversation with the present. It touches on the democratization of the gaze—who gets to tell the story and from whose perspective? By literalizing the Black perspective, Ross bypasses the "white savior" tropes or the "trauma porn" traps that contemporary critics (and audiences) are rightfully weary of. It feels like a film made for a generation that is hyper-aware of how images are constructed and how they can be used to either liberate or imprison.

The score by Alex Somers is another highlight—it doesn't tell you how to feel with sweeping strings. Instead, it hums and vibrates, mimicking the internal anxiety of a kid waiting for the other shoe to drop. It sounds less like music and more like the ringing in your ears after a punch.

Nickel Boys is a demanding watch, but the payoff is a profound sense of empathy that few films ever actually achieve. It’s a bold middle finger to the "standard" biopic and a testament to the power of perspective. It might have been overlooked in the shuffle of 2024’s bigger releases, but it’s the kind of film that sticks to your ribs long after you’ve changed out of your damp socks. If you’re looking for something that uses the tools of modern cinema to do more than just entertain, this is your destination.