Nickel Boys: LFF Film Review
Nickel Boys has been highly praised on the film festival circuit but I had some reservations about it due to the way it’s shot.
Set in Florida in 1962, this drama tells the story of Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse), who is sent to Nickel Academy, a segregated reform school inspired by Dozier School for Boys. He befriends Turner (Brandon Wilson) and they form an alliance to help each other survive the abuse.
Nickel Boys is a challenging watch and not just because of the subject material. It is told in the first-person perspective, meaning the camera is literally the eyes of Elwood and Turner so we don’t see them on-screen very much. While I respect director RaMell Ross for using such an unusual storytelling device, I wasn’t totally sold on it. It presents a unique viewpoint into the story but we only get to see glimpses of it. We don’t know the wider picture. Watching a 2 hour 20-minute movie that consists of fragments here and there is quite the endurance test.
Naturally, because of this choice, the camera has to behave like it’s a person looking at things. And people don’t look directly at who they’re talking to, they might look back and forth or avert their gaze so the camera has to do that too. This means the framing of shots is very unconventional and every scene is a one-take sequence as there is no need to cut between characters. Also, this perspective has ramifications on the script too – if your person isn’t privy to all the information, we can’t know everything either.
I got used to the first-person point-of-view after a while, but there was a different device used in a separate timeline that I didn’t like. Set between the 1980s and 2018, this timeline follows one of the boys as an adult. But instead of using the viewpoint as before, the character is now in front of the camera but we only see the back of their head. The point of this emerges later but I still wasn’t a fan of watching somebody’s head.
I’ve spent way too much time discussing how it looks but that’s because it frustratingly distracts from a worthwhile story. I wanted to know more about what happened (although I’m glad the abuse wasn’t shown) and be fed all the details – but you don’t get that satisfaction. You get an idea and your imagination can fill in some of the blanks but that’s it. The visual approach stopped me from emotionally connecting with the story as much as I’d have liked.
The cast deserves credit for convincingly interacting with the camera like it’s a person, especially the natural and effortless young boys. It’s a shame we don’t see them actually interacting with one another on camera. However, the biggest praise needs to go to the camera operator for behaving believably like a person’s line of vision. The movements are very smooth and seamless.
Nickel Boys tells a heartbreaking story that would have had me in tears if it wasn’t for the storytelling technique keeping me at arm’s length.
Seen at the London Film Festival. In cinemas from 3rd January 2025