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“Nickel Boys” writer/director RaMell Ross has already been toasted as a filmmaker to watch this awards season for his acclaimed adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel.
Now, ahead of the film‘s premiere, a new trailer is giving more details about the elusive plotline that plays with perspective.
The official synopsis reads: “Elwood Curtis’ college dream shatters alongside a two-lane Florida highway. Bearing the brunt of an innocent misstep, he’s sentenced to the netherworld of Nickel Academy, a brutal reformatory sunk deep in the Jim Crow South. He encounters another ward, the seen-it-all Turner. The two Black teens strike up an alliance: Turner dispensing fundamental tips for survival, Elwood, clinging to his optimistic worldview. Backdropped by the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Elwood and Turner’s existence appear worlds away from Rev. Martin Luther King’s burnished oratory. Despite Nickel’s brutality, Elwood strives to hold onto his humanity, awakening a new vision for Turner.”
Ethan Herisse and Brandon Wilson lead the film, which also stars Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.
Ross co-wrote the script with Joslyn Barnes. Ross previously made his directorial debut with 2018 documentary “Hale County This Morning, This Evening.” “Nickel Boys” is his first narrative feature. Read the IndieWire review here.
Ross received the Auteur Award at the 2024 IndieWire Honors event, where he said that it is “really flattering to be called an auteur, let alone given an award for it,” this early in his career.
“It means, to some degree at least, that what I tried to manifest with this film, the way I chose to say it and let it say — and I do mean kind of let the film speak — really sticks in the intimate atmosphere of our minds,” Ross said. “I do think people who have really inspired me in cinema have been fearless and uncompromising auteurs, people whose vision I like to think are anagrams for the consciousness.”
He continued, “The film is not looking at the Black community, it’s looking from the Black community. And that’s a perspective I wasn’t seeing often. Alternatively, I think this film and Colson Whitehead’s novel is about justice on some level, not only visual justice but another justice, one for the young men of the Dozier School for Boys and their families. And this is really, really deeply true, we owe those young men for their stories not to be buried right next to them. It’s such a tragedy, such a horrible story. At a time when we want to forget and ignore the ugly parts of American history, I wanted to create a loving and experiential monument to the [real life] Dozier School boys.”
“Nickel Boys” is produced by Dede Gardner, Jeremy Kleiner, David Levine, and co-writer Barnes. The executive producers include Brad Pitt, Gabby Shepard, Emily Wolfe, Kenneth Yu, and Chadwick Prichard.
“Nickel Boys” premieres today, December 13, in select theaters in New York, with a Los Angeles rollout December 20. The film will expand nationwide in January 2025. Check out the trailer below.
English (US) ·