Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, "Nickel Boys" chronicles the powerful friendship between two young African-American men navigating the harrowing trials of refo... Read allBased on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, "Nickel Boys" chronicles the powerful friendship between two young African-American men navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Colson Whitehead, "Nickel Boys" chronicles the powerful friendship between two young African-American men navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.
- Nominated for 2 Oscars
- 40 wins & 169 nominations total
- White Boy
- (as Zachary Luke Van Zandt)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
5 Film Recs From Director RaMell Ross
5 Film Recs From Director RaMell Ross
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaBased on a story of Jerry Cooper. In 1961, a 16-year-old White teen ran away from home, hitchhiked in a stolen car, was charged with car theft and sent to the Florida's Dozier School for Boys, where he was subjected to brutal beatings and witnessed sexual abuse and murders committed by the staff.
- GoofsEarly in the movie, when MLK is shown on various TV screens in the window of a store, you can see the camera's reflection in the bottom left of the screen.
- Quotes
Turner: This can be a three-day job we play it right. We till the garden and fix up her house, she may even adopt our black asses. Well not you, you got family. I'd yessum her for a chance out of Nickel.
Elwood: That ain't no freedom. I mean you know Director Hardee and his wife ain't supposed to use us like we're slaves.
Turner: Man, all those guys on the school board have us do chores. Sometimes it's favors, sometimes it's for real money.
Elwood: But it's against the law.
Turner: [Turner laughs] Man, the law's one thing. You can march and wave signs around and change a law if you convince enough white people. I saw those college kids in Tampa with their nice shirts and ties sitting at the Woolworth's. I had to work, but they were out protesting. And it happened, they opened that counter. But I didn't have the money to eat there either way. Gotta change the economics of all this, too.
Elwood: My grandma got me that lawyer, man. Make a move there, first.
Turner: The courts play both the white and the black. They just move us around when they're ready.
Elwood: And we have to be like knights. Checkmate.
Turner: How many people you know done that, El? There's four ways out of Nickel. Serve your time -or age out-. Court might intervene -if you believe in miracles-. You could die -they could kill you-. You could run. Only four ways out of Nickel.
- ConnectionsFeatured in WatchMojo: Top 10 Best Movies of 2024 (2024)
- SoundtracksYoung Girl
Written, Composed and Produced by Herschel Dwellingham
Performed by Frank Lynch
Courtesy of Grass of Home Productions and Publishing (BMI)
The film follows Elwood Curtis, a bright and idealistic young black man wrongly sentenced to the Nickel Academy, a supposed institution of learning that is, in reality, a breeding ground for sadism and racial violence. We witness the horrors through Elwood's eyes, alongside his more cynical companion, Turner. However, witnessing these horrors is a frustratingly difficult task, thanks to Ross's baffling stylistic choices.
Instead of establishing a sense of place and allowing the audience to breathe in the suffocating atmosphere of Nickel, the film throws us into a relentless barrage of close-ups. Faces fill the frame, disembodied and divorced from their surroundings, leaving us with no context for their expressions or the environment that informs them. This constant proximity might have been effective in creating intimacy if it wasn't paired with a dizzying array of first-person perspectives.
We're thrust into the shoes of various characters, often with no clear indication of who we're supposed to be inhabiting. The camera becomes an erratic, disorienting stand-in for the eyes of the boys, sometimes even inexplicably positioned to stare at the back of Elwood's head. This technique, presumably intended to immerse us in the characters' subjective experiences, achieves the opposite effect. It detaches us, leaving us scrambling to understand basic spatial relationships and the narrative flow.
The result is a chaotic, disorienting mess. Scenes that should be emotionally impactful are reduced to a jumble of fragmented images. Key moments of violence are obscured by the shaky, often illegible camerawork. The film's attempts at conveying the psychological toll of trauma are lost in the visual clutter. It's as if the filmmakers were so determined to avoid a conventional approach that they forgot the fundamental purpose of cinematography: to tell a story visually.
While the performances from the young cast are commendable, particularly Ethan Herisse as Elwood, their efforts are ultimately undermined by the film's impenetrable style. "The Nickel Boys" had the potential to be a powerful and necessary piece of cinema, but it is ultimately undone by its own cinematic excesses. Instead of illuminating Whitehead's devastating story, the film buries it under a mountain of ill-conceived visual choices, leaving the audience lost in the dark, struggling to see the tragedy unfolding before them. It's a film that tragically fails to understand that sometimes, less truly is more.
- TheBigSick
- Jan 21, 2025
- Permalink
2025 Oscars: IMDb Editors' Predictions
2025 Oscars: IMDb Editors' Predictions
- How long is Nickel Boys?Powered by Alexa
Details
Box office
- Budget
- $20,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $2,301,731
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $54,794
- Dec 15, 2024
- Gross worldwide
- $2,459,765
- Runtime2 hours 20 minutes
- Color
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1
Contribute to this page
