In the early 1960s, a Black teenage boy (Ethan Harisse) is taken to Nickel Academy in Florida, where he’s subjected to abuse; 20 years later, he’s dealing with the consequences.

Colson Whitehead’s reality-based novels seem to inspire the best in filmmakers; much like the series The Underground Railroad (2021), this movie was made with a great deal of passion and technical skill. Most of the horrors at the infamous Nickel Academy are shown from the perspective of either Elwood or Turner, who becomes his ally in this place.

The effects of racism, and how lives are wasted because of it, is crushing to behold, but the film also has moments of beauty.

2024-U.S. 140 min. Color-B/W. Directed by RaMell Ross. Screenplay: RaMell Ross, Joslyn Barnes. Novel: Colson Whitehead. Cinematography: Jomo Fray. Cast: Ethan Harisse (Elwood), Brandon Wilson (Turner), Daveed Diggs (Adult Elwood), Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger. 

Trivia: Co-executive produced by Brad Pitt.

Last word: “I hate to sound precious, but once I read the book, I thought POV. I thought poetry. I thought archival. It came pretty fast, because the way I entered the book aligned so much with my aesthetic values. That time period is saturated with archival images that aren’t from our point of view. Generally speaking, they lack the poetry. They lack the interstitialness, the lyricism. How does that affect today’s quotidian? So, if you repopulate that to make a film that’s only poetic in this deep narrative that’s ready-made, it seemed to me not only a radical act, but an actual intervention into visual aesthetics.” (Ross, Vulture)