“Nickel Boys” is a harrowing story of young Black men who were incarcerated in the 1960s that is both helped and hindered by its first-person camera work.

While certain things have been fictionalized, the film is based on a real detention center in the South in that era.

The entire film is shown in through first-person cinematography, mainly from the protagonist, Elwood (Ethan Herisse), and occasionally from Turner (Brandon Wilson), another young man he met while wrongly incarcerated.

The start of the film paints a bright future for Elwood: he is beloved by his grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor), who is raising him, and he is doing very well at school and has qualified to attend college courses early for free. En route to his first day of classes, he unknowingly hitches a ride in a stolen car and is sent to jail as an accomplice.

In addition to star-making performances by Herisse and Wilson, the supporting cast, including Ellis-Taylor and Daveed Diggs, is on fire. They provide a lot of emotional depth to the film, especially as you do not see the lead characters’ faces that often due to the cinematography gimmick.

While I do find some of the moments unique and compelling with this cinematography style, it can get a little distracting, and sometimes, I just wanted to see the emotions Elwood and Turner were experiencing in key scenes.

Rating: 4/5