It’s often said that great novels don’t always make good films, as what’s effective on a page does not always translate to a visual medium. Classics like Jaws or The Godfather were inspired by trashy, populist novels that required a fair amount of additional material to flesh out feature-length stories; similarly, several books that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction were transformed into overwrought, dull adaptations, including the bloated film version of The Goldfinch, and Netflix’s melodramatic four-part miniseries All We Imagine As Light.
Colson Whitehead’s 2019 novel The Nickel Boys seemed the least probable to receive a satisfying adaptation. Beyond the fact that it deals with very difficult subject material related to racism and child abuse, The Nickel Boys has a bifurcated narrative that switches between events in the 2010s and the 1960s. The Nickel Boys was inspired by a real scandal at the historic Dozier School in Florida, but the more lyrical approach to its two protagonists still required readers to invest in the narrative prose.
The feature-length version of Nickel Boys (which dropped “The” altogether) is directed by RaMell Ross, the documentary filmmaker behind Hale County This Morning, This Evening. The transition from nonfiction to narrative storytelling isn’t easy. Earlier this year, director Joshua Oppenheimer delivered the dramatically inert apocalyptic musical The End, despite his impressive work on the documentaries The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence. However, Ross seemed to understand a truth about filmmaking that’s applicable to either form of storytelling; what’s told is generally less important than the way it’s expressed.
Ross’ documentary work succeeded because of his ability to allow the audience to walk in the shoes of his subjects. This is generally something that narrative features are incapable of doing, as even the most heavily-researched film is still a translation of events. A recreation of the events within Whitehead's novel would be impossible, but Ross understood that it felt like a totemic work because of how the crushing weight of generational trauma disrupted the adolescence of two young boys. Nickel Boys is told from the first-person perspective of the African-American students Elwood and Turner as they survive a segregated boarding school in the Jim Crow era.
Elwood’s taught from a young age that being politically outspoken is a luxury that black children aren’t afforded. Despite his rejection of propaganda in his school textbooks, Elwood’s grandmother told him repeatedly that white society will shame him for any participation in the ongoing Civil Rights movement. Initially, an acceptance to the prestigious Nickel Academy in Tallahassee seems like the only opportunity that Elwood will ever have to “blend in.” However, it’s clear that segregation means that all students are not treated equally at Nickel, as Elwood’s black classmates abide by unspoken rules that limit their capacity for upward mobility.
Sometimes, Elwood will learn about a student athlete told to throw a match in order to avoid embarrassing a white opponent. The black population are housed in declining housing quarters that present obvious health concerns; their time in the classroom is minimal, as they’re forced to perform manual labor as if slavery was still in practice. In the film’s most upsetting sequence, classmates are forcibly taken at night by administrators, where it’s implied they suffer sexual assault. The biggest question that Whitehead’s novel asked was how such brutal practices could fly under the radar for years, but Ross’ film examines why speaking up was such a challenge. Every cruel action at Nickel Academy was presented as a matter-of-the-fact reality, as progress can never occur if discrimination isn’t acknowledged.
The use of a first-person perspective risked being taken as a gimmick, since this technique has generally only been utilized in junky B-movies (Hardcore Henry) or extreme surrealist art house projects (Enter the Void). Nickel Boys is effective because the film is intended to be disorienting and discomforting. Elwood’s exposed to an environment of terror, but has tried to bury his trauma as a means of moving forward. The rush of childhood memories that emerge come when he’s an adult with his own business, and finally has the emotional maturity to cope with the revelation of what occurred.
The details are sickening; unmarked graves containing the bodies of black students are discovered at the remains of Nickel Academy, indicating that those that threatened to speak out were executed. A violent scene of a child being murdered may have created a shocking moment, but even the most sensitive viewer would be able to shake off their initial reaction by reminding themselves that what they’re watching is simply an artistic recreation. Nickel Boys doesn’t allow for that separation. The viewer is with Elwood, and is allowed to come to their own conclusions at the same time that he is.
Despite how initially jarring it is to hear characters directly addressing the camera, Nickel Boys is adept at filling in the context without badgering the viewers with exposition. Early moments with Elwood’s family detail the social implications of a prestigious education, and a few conversations with Turner create a more open dialogue about the importance of cynicism. Nickel Boys is a PG-13 film that could be used as an educational tool, but will likely be given only a limited release due to a lack of audience interest in something so experimental. As the film points out, the best way to avoid consequences is to pretend that they don’t exist.