‘Nickel Boys’: Colson Whitehead’s Harrowing Racism Drama Hits Big Screen

First-person storytelling is taken to an excessive degree in Nickel Boys, RaMell Ross’ adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 2019 novel, whose primary action is shot from the point-of-view of its protagonist and, eventually, his best friend.

That approach is intended to foster intimate engagement with the plight of its victimized characters. Yet instead, it has the opposite effect, calling such constant undue attention to itself (and its artificiality) that it proves a distracting gimmick which undercuts the proceedings’ portrait of torment, perseverance, camaraderie, and survival. Its formal showmanship unconvincing and off-putting, the film is a case study in the hazards of prizing style over substance.

The opening night selection of the 62nd New York Film Festival, and in theaters on Oct. 25, Nickel Boys doesn’t establish context for its tale, although later dialogue indicates that it’s set in 1960s Tallahassee, Florida, during Jim Crow. There, Elwood (Ethan Cole) spends his days gazing up at orange trees, twirling leaves between his fingers, and gently touching spiderwebs, all of which Ross shoots with a brand of dreamy expressionism reminiscent of his 2018 documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening.

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