The Oscars are just a few weeks away, and with 10 Best Picture nominees, it can feel like there’s a lot to catch up on. While movies like Emelia Perez, The Brutalist, and Wicked dominated much of the initial discourse, none of those are the Best Picture nominee that felt most urgent and resonant to me.
That would be Nickle Boys, directed by RaMell Ross and adapted from the Colson Whitehead novel. Ross initially burst on to the scene with his 2018 documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening. That film helped redefine for me what a documentary could be. It didn’t have any real linear structure, instead presenting images of a place, lyrically capturing the experience of one predominantly black community.
Similarly, Nickle Boys does away with the traditional film structure, instead shooting the story of two black teenagers sent to an abusive reform school in the 1960s in the first person. As a result, the film itself feels more like a lived experience than a typical movie. Sometimes the action takes place just out of frame or you don’t have a great view, so you have to rely on sounds to understand what’s happening. While that frustrated me at times, it also cranked my level of immersion in the story way up. **It’s a big, bold take on a tragic American tale, and it is absolutely worth seeking out and letting flow through you like water.
While Nickle Boys isn’t the loudest or the most expensive film in this year’s Oscars race, it is the one that has lived with me the most, and that I’ve found myself thinking back on most frequently.
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