As “Nickel Boys” begins, we’re dropped immediately into the early days of a younger Black boy named Elwood, residing in Tallahassee, Florida along with his beloved grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor). Ross has us drifting by Elwood’s youth as we glance out by his eyes, seeing what he sees: flowers in a subject, arms clutching one another, a sheet billowing down from above as a mattress is being made, a energetic Christmas celebration. It seems like a photograph album come to life, and instantly acclimates us to the cinematic rhythm Ross is creating. Finally, this opening montage settles right into a extra commonplace narrative move. It is 1962, and Elwood, now a younger man (performed by Ethan Herisse, though it will likely be some time earlier than we truly get an excellent have a look at him) is clever and sort, turning into concerned with the Civil Rights motion in any manner he can whereas additionally dreaming of school. When Elwood’s supportive highschool instructor Mr. Hill (Jimmie Fails) tells him of a college that can settle for him, tuition-free, Elwood is ecstatic.
However Elwood won’t ever attain that college. On what’s purported to be his first day, he accepts a trip from a stranger. The automobile seems to be stolen, and whereas Elwood clearly had nothing to do with its theft, and although his grandmother manages to get him a lawyer to mount his protection, he is nonetheless despatched away to Nickel Academy, a segregated reform faculty with a algorithm doled out by Spencer (Hamish Linklater), the administrator who at all times appears vaguely threatening even when saying mundane issues. In Spencer’s personal phrases, the boys of Nickel Academy work their manner up, beginning out as lowly “Grubs,” gaining extra privileges primarily based on their conduct.
It is at Nickel that Ross pulls off one thing akin to a magic trick, all of the sudden switching the movie’s POV. In a single scene, as we’re nonetheless searching from Elwood’s eyes, we watch as he sits down within the mess corridor for lunch and is mocked by different boys at his desk. However one of many boys, a peaceful, cool younger man named Turner (Brandon Wilson), is surprisingly sort to Elwood, and we will inform these two will develop into associates; it is nearly future. Then, within the blink of a watch, we watch the identical scene play out once more — solely this time, the POV has switched to Turner’s eyes. Up till now, we have solely actually glimpsed Elwood’s face vaguely, by reflections in home windows or, when he is youthful, in his grandmother’s steam iron. Now, we’re lastly seeing Elwood’s unhappy face, a call that has the impact of a key unlocking one thing, opening up a complete new world.
Because the movie strikes ahead, Ross continuously jumps backwards and forwards from the attitude of Elwood and Turner, and we come to really feel as if we have identified each of those younger males all our lives. They by no means as soon as really feel like characters in a movie; they’re alive for us. Additionally they two very totally different folks. Regardless of his circumstances, Elwood continues to dream of life past Nickel. Turner, nevertheless, has already been in Nickel as soon as earlier than, and has no such goals. I would not name him “defeated,” however he is adopted a worldview that assumes nothing will ever enhance; that life is a collection of ups and downs, and the downs are inclined to win out. And but, regardless of their vastly contradictory worldviews, these two souls discover a dwelling in one another’s hearts, and we wish solely good issues for them, although we all know that their very state of affairs implies that good issues are not possible.
