“Nickel Boys” doesn’t look like any film you’ve seen this year — literally.
Directed by RaMell Ross and adapted from Colson Whitehead’s 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name, the historical drama was lushly shot from a first-person point of view.
This means you’re immediately thrown into the action of 1962 Jim Crow-era Tallahassee, Florida, from the direct perspective of two young Black-American boys — Elwood (Ethan Heisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson).
They navigate life at an abusive reform school called the Nickel Academy. Horrifically, the academy is based on a real-life Florida institution, the Dozier School for Boys, which is thankfully now closed.
“The two Black teens strike up an alliance: Turner dispensing fundamental tips for survival, Elwood, clinging to his optimistic worldview,” reads the film’s official synopsis. “Backdropped by the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Elwood and Turner’s existence appears worlds away from Rev. Martin Luther King’s burnished oratory. Despite Nickel’s brutality,
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