The story of The Nickel Boys is absolutely horrific. Directed by RaMell Ross and based on the 2019 book of the same name by Colson Whitehead, the film follows Elwood (Ethan Herisse), a young African American kid who was just accepted into college and his grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) couldn’t be happier. As he packs up and makes his way to the school for the first time, he’s stopped by the police, written up on some pinched and false charges and sent to the Nickel Academy. There he meets Turner (Brandon Wilson), who’s obviously been there a while. Turner befriends him and shows him the way to keep out of trouble and survive. While there, the students must work off their supposed crimes and once they do, they’re allowed to leave. But, as you can bet, the school administrators easily find a way for that not to happen.
It’s a sad and incredibly angering story but the way it was shot, in POV from either Turner and Elwood’s perspective, it’s incredibly distractive. It took me completely out of the story and made it difficult to actually connect with any of the characters.
The first film I saw that was shot in POV was, The Blair Witch Project. It was truly innovative at the time and scary as heck, you never knew what was behind the characters or what was about to come next, much like the characters in the film. It worked (or works) fine for a horror movie, but a full-on drama?
And you can absolutely make a case for The Nickel Boys being a horror film. What those kids experienced was ghastly, no doubt. The people in charge of that school were monsters, yeah. But I want to see what the characters are feeling. I want to see what the other characters are feeling and reacting to when someone is talking to them. Acting is reacting and with POV, you only get 50% of that.
The cast was fine, including Hamish Linklater as a teacher and Daveed Diggs as the older version of one of the characters. I can only imagine how much praise the young cast would be getting if it were shot in more of a traditional way though.
Another thing that took me out of the film was when the off screen actors would respond to the characters they were talking to. When we’re watching a character’s point of view, it wasn’t like they were acting, it was more like they were just reading their lines. It was like there was no investment in that particular moment for them since they were off-screen.
The whole film felt like a big mashup of self-tapes.
