RAMELL ROSS | USA | 2024 | 140 MIN | ENGLISH
With his Academy Award-nominated documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, RaMell Ross asserted his place as a major new filmmaking talent of uncommon perception and skill. Ross proves that his impressionistic style lends itself equally well to narrative storytelling with his staggering follow-up, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s best-selling, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Nickel Boys tells the story of two Black teenagers who forge a deep friendship against the backdrop of a repressive reform school in Jim Crow-era Florida. When a run-in with racist police lands intelligent, ambitious Elwood (Ethan Herisse) at the notorious Nickel Academy, he strikes up a friendship with Turner (Brandon Wilson), another teen who’s become accustomed to the harsh ways of the academy and offers helpful tips for survival. Despite the abuses and cruelties surrounding them, Elwood and Turner provide each other with solace and hope for a better future. Young actors Herisse and Wilson are revelatory as the film’s locus, while an impressive ensemble including Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Hamish Linklater, and Daveed Diggs bring soulful honesty to their supporting performances. Working with cinematographer Jomo Fray (All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt, PFF32) Ross uses an innovative cinematic language to ground viewers in the subjective experiences of his characters. Harrowing in its evocation of American racism yet persistently attuned to the beauty of the world it’s easy to see why this audacious adaptation by a true cinematic artist is already one of the best reviewed films of the year and the buzziest for awards season.
Cast: Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger
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