In 'Nickel Boys,' director RaMell Ross unveils haunting portrait of resilience, radical love in face of injustice
In the new film "Nickel Boys," RaMell Ross offers an unflinching confrontation of systemic evil, human resilience and the radical call to love in the face of injustice — themes the director says are "deeply spiritual."
Based on Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, the MGM Amazon Studios film follows Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), two boys navigating the horrors of a brutal reform school in 1960s Florida. Through a combination of subjective camera work and impressionistic storytelling, Ross immerses viewers in the boys' world, placing them directly in the characters' perspectives.
Yet the film's roots are firmly planted in historical truths. The Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, which inspired Whitehead's novel, left a legacy of abuse, death and trauma. For over a century, the school served as a house of horrors for "throwaway" children, with allegations of torture and dozens of unmarked graves eventually leading to its closure in 2012.
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In an interview with The Christian Post, Ross emphasized the film's spiritual core — particularly as it relates to Elwood — and the tension of how to tell a story rooted in despair while maintaining a thread of hope.
Speaking about Elwood's struggle to embrace Martin Luther King Jr.'s philosophy of loving one's enemies as commanded in Matthew 5, the 42-year-old award-winning director explained:
"It's so difficult, if not impossible, to hyper-consider the ways in which Elwood engages with something so integral to his being," Ross said. "He's just got beaten, he's lying on the bed, and Turner is telling him how the world is. But Elwood refuses to give in to selfishness or self-preservation. For him, the fight is so much bigger."
Though not a faith-based film — and it's rated PG-13 for thematic material involving racism, some strong language including racial slurs, violent content and smoking — faith is a recurring theme in "Nickel Boys," particularly in Elwood's ability to persevere through unimaginable suffering.
Ross described faith as a central part of Elwood's identity, instilled in him by his grandmother, Hattie (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor). Throughout the film, Elwood repeatedly turns to faith, even in moments of doubt, such as his time in solitary confinement.
"Faith is something, of course, that exists because you don't need evidence for it by faith itself," Ross said. "It's something that you believe or you don't believe, and it's Elwood's engine. It's kind of what he always falls back to."
"He questions it when he's in the sweatbox, but he's also sort of relieved that Turner saved him, and that kind of restored his faith," Ross said. "He didn't have parents, but he had a grandparent who gave him enough love to open him up to the MLK belief. To me, that underpins faith with love."
The film, currently nominated for five Critic's Choice Awards, including Best Director, incorporates gospel music, a choice Ross described as essential to capturing the role of faith in black survival and resilience.
"Christianity is integral to not only the culture and black culture at large, but also the survival of black people at large," Ross explained. "That faith, while sometimes complicated — and Christianity, of course, is complicated because it's often used to subjugate in some moments — but then also is a way to survive subjugation."
For Herisse, portraying Elwood meant channeling the character's quiet grace and inner conflict.
"I approached Elwood's struggle with loving his enemies by connecting with his grace," Herisse told CP. "It's something I admired about him, and it helped me explore his internal conflict with dignity and strength."
In contrast, Wilson, whose Turner is pragmatic and world-weary, viewed his character through the lens of survival.
"Turner's cynicism felt like a necessity for him," Wilson said. "It was his way of tunneling through the world to keep going. But there's still a light in him — a childlike aspect that refuses to be stifled."
Herisse said he hopes audiences are able to accept the "visual language" the film is presented in because "it doesn't allow you to step away from it."
"You can't look away; when Elliott getting poked in the stomach, you don't know how he ended up there, or why he's being poked or why he's being profiled; you're just there, and you cannot separate yourself from it, and that's going to make you uncomfortable.
"I would like audiences to be reminded of the fact that Elwood and Turner are human beings and be inspired by their resilience. … If you accept the language of the movie and allow yourself to be affected, it won't leave you."
Daveed Diggs ("Hamilton"), who plays an older Elwood searching for answers, also reflected on Ross' use of first-person perspective.
"You don't get to choose what side you're on," Diggs said. "You experience the atrocities as they do, and then you're left to decide: do you carry on with joy and love or with hatred?"
Ellis-Taylor, an Academy Award-nominated actress, highlighted the film's call to confront painful truths. By highlighting the "conspiracy of silence" surrounding the real-life horrors of the Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, Ellis-Taylor said she hopes "Nickel Boys" encourages viewers to break the cycle of complicity.
"These reform schools were not rare," she said, "RaMell shot this film with the intention of our coming into this space where we share the pain of these children. … He made pain communicable, meaning it is something that spreads, and because it's communicable, it is communal. It belongs to all of us. No one can separate themselves from it. It belongs to all of us. We are all complicit in it. We are all responsible for it."
"The wonderful thing about that, and a hopeful thing about that is that we can leave that theater and be the voices and the champions of those children and what happened to them," she continued. "We can talk about it. It was allowed to happen because there was a conspiracy of silence about that school and what happened at that school, and we can make that choice — and that choice can happen because of faith or because of our own personal zeal for what is right and wrong — that does not happen again. We can make that choice to not sit back and allow injustice to happen in our faces."
"Nickel Boys" is now playing in theaters.
Leah M. Klett is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: leah.klett@christianpost.com
