RaMell Ross' "Nickel Boys" Presents a Breathlessly Beautiful Reinvention of Visual Storytelling

It goes without saying that perspective is everything when it comes to filmmaking. It informs how people interpret what they see onscreen. The camera is an extraordinary tool that objectively captures whatever's placed in front of it, but the subjectivity of who, what, when, where and how it's positioned is where the magic happens. It is this omniscient force that sees sight beyond sight. Ever since the days of the silent era, the evolution in visual storytelling has always been an exciting development. The movies would learn to talk to us, creating generation after generation of filmmakers that build new and exciting visual languages based on what came before. It's hard to inform the present without looking to the past. I thought about this a lot while watching RaMell Ross' "Nickel Boys" — one of the best films of last year and an extraordinarily impressive technical/formal achievement that has the power to revolutionize how we tell stories. Based on Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer prize-winning novel "The Nickel Boys," this Academy Award-nominated 2024 film adaptation follows the story of Elwood (Ethan Herisee) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), two Black youths who become ensnared in the cruelty of a vicious Jim Crow south reform school. The story is a fictionalized account of the very real atrocities committed at the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, here presented as the Nickel Academy. For over a century, the supposed reform institution in Florida was home to a series of beatings, sexual assault and countless murders, a fact made even more harrowing with the knowledge that most grave sites were left unmarked. It's sickening to think that this systemic abuse went on for as long as it did. There's a world in which this story is told through the conventional visual language; "Nickel Boys" is not one of them. Ross presents this recounting of resilience and guilt through a POV lens. The practice of presenting a film solely through the eyes of your main characters isn't exactly a new concept. Ross' approach, however, runs on its own wavelength that imbues the self as text in ways I've never seen before. Every frame of "Nickel Boys" feels so uniquely alive — and that's because they are. Think of the way you view the world, not so much ideologically, but with your eyes. No one can see the world like you, despite our collective experiences. We are all our own person with our own memories. Presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio, the film invites us to view this story through fractured memories that bleed into one another. "Nickel Boys" captures what feeling looks like. When I saw this at the press screening, I was hypnotized at how cinematographer Jomo Fray presents vibrancy. In our protagonists' happiest moments, colors operate on a frequency in the way that only makes sense when you're a kid. There's a delightful moment when a little girl slides under Elwood's seat on a city bus to wave hello. As she slides back, he looks down to see where she came from, and even the dusty bus floor shares its own scale of beauty. It almost doesn't feel real, adding to the surreal nature of organizing your memories, some of which are clear as day, while others are a bit fuzzier. It's all about the little moments. Ross' previous feature, "Hale Country This Morning, This Evening," showed the promise of a photographer turned filmmaker that has a lot to say about observation. You can practically see the invisible language of "Nickel Boys" being born here with its dreamy portrait of the titular Alabama community. Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor gives the film's lynchpin performance in Hattie, Elwood's loving grandmother, as she forms a bond with the boys in ways that make the past, present and future feel locked down and out of time. "Nickel Boys" is built upon the foundation of dueling POV perspectives that provide a riveting alternative to the long-established practice of depicting a conversation through a series of shot-reverse shots. As Elwood and Turner get to know one another, "Nickel Boys" becomes a symbiotic experience. The camera informs the emotional decisions of its characters. Ross and Fray literally invite you not to put yourself in someone else's shoes, but to exist in them. We get to know them by being them, feeling their hope, stewing in their anguish. Even those brief reflections of seemingly ordinary moments such as a reflection on an iron or a storefront mirror present narrative and historical context to these characters that feel so achingly personal. We only get pieces of the puzzle up front, culminating in a series of emotionally resonant gut punches that composes the big picture. It tore my heart out. "Nickel Boys" is very much a film that rewards multiple viewings for that reason alone. It's staggering how Ross and Fray explode the conventional boundaries of cinematic narratives and in the process of doing so, pave an exciting path forward for a whole new generation of filmmakers. What a beautiful film. "Nickel Boys" is currently available for rental or purchase on most digital streaming platforms. Stay safe. Be kind.