Label me one of the frowny skeptics who couldn’t quite get past the experimental dissociative gimmick of this film. I was so taken out of the drama that I almost – almost – came down hard on this flick. But it eventually reached a point of “ok, I at least see the trauma” that allowed me an “in”.
The film is a mostly sometimes often first person narrative of a black boy in the 60s who is sent to the Nickel reform school… where he becomes one of the Nickel Boys. Everything is not separate but equal… or unified and equal, for that matter.
Most of the film is from our off-screen first person character… which is instantly off-putting since I have very little idea of what he looks like or how he reacts to events around him. But then sometimes it’s someone else’s first person view and sometimes it the first person view of two different people in the same scene that made me think there was a third person in the room. Argh!
It reminds me of the time distortion magic trick in Dunkirk where we just have to hurry up and catch up with the galaxy brain of the director. In this case, pay attention to who’s talking… why were you wrong? Keep up! Oh, and what time period we’re in and is it souly based on being over-the- shoulder vs. first person camera? Pick a lane, movie!
Thing is, there’s probably an Enigma Machine that can decode the film’s visual logic and choices. A solid study of the narrative and time periods would probably make this film genius. But, on a first watch, I was constantly taken out of the narrative both by trying to figure out who, when, and where but also why I should care about a character I can’t even see.
But there is a point where the narrative starts to come together and you begin to realize what the film’s all about. Civil rights for sure… but also something deeper, more mortal. Its at that point where I nodded and said, “OK, clever, I’m finally meeting you on a human level that I can understand. I finally have characters I can root for and institutional madness I can abhor.”
But the damage had already been done… it can’t encroach on best picture or a higher score for me. I spent too much time annoyed, calculating, and uninterested to give it a very high score. But I got close and eventually the late stage story won me over.
Score: 79