Get the latest gossip

‘Nickel Boys’ Review: RaMell Ross Breaks Free of Reform-School Tropes, but Loses the Plot in the Process


Ross envisions a radically different cinematic form for 'Nickel Boys,' testing new ways for audiences to identify with its two teenage protagonists.

Building on the promise of 2018’s Oscar-nominated essay-doc “Hale County This Morning, This Evening,” Ross presents “Nickel Boys” as a series of first-person impressions: evocative sense memories from Elwood’s childhood, education and adolescent activism, crushed but not killed by unjust incarceration. For a short time, Elwood thinks he can continue his education there, but this institution is no school; it’s an illegally segregated penal system where the boys spend long hours working, or else doing “community service” (the administration’s name for selling to local businesses the supplies meant for students). As a boy, he had felt alone in this world, but at Nickel, he finally sees in someone else a reflection of himself — a notion that Ross interprets a bit too literally, breaking the strict subjectivity of Elwood’s experience and leaping across the cafeteria table to Turner (Brandon Wilson), a lighter-skinned kid his age.

Get the Android app

Or read this on Variety

Read more on:

Photo of ramell ross

ramell ross

Related news:

News photo

RaMell Ross’s Nickel Boys to Open New York Film Festival

News photo

RaMell Ross’ ‘Nickel Boys’ To Open New York Film Festival

News photo

New York Film Festival Sets RaMell Ross’ ‘Nickel Boys’ as Opening Night Movie