How to watch Nickel Boys in the UK
There’s drama in the Deep South in this formally daring literary adaptation.
The Oscar-nominated adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s acclaimed novel is one of the most talked-about movies of the year. Want to know why? Read on…
How to watch Nickel Boys in the UK
Nickel Boys is screening in UK cinemas right now.
What is Nickel Boys about?
Based on the 2019 novel The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, whose Pulitzer Prize-winning 2016 book, The Underground Railroad, was adapted for Amazon by Barry Jenkins in 2021, the movie follows the fortunes of two Black teenagers sentenced to the Nickel Academy reform school in 1962: college-bound Elwood, wrongfully convicted for car theft after catching a lift with a stranger; and cynical, seen-it-all Turner. The wrinkle is that director RaMell Ross, who co-wrote the screenplay with Joslyn Barnes, presents a lof of the film in first person POV, alternating between the two leads, resulting in a degree of emotional intimacy rarely seen in cinema.
The cast of Nickel Boys
Ethan Herisse is Elwood, with Ethan Cole Sharp as the young version and Daveed Diggs as the adult Elwood, a businessman in New York City we see in flash-forward sequences; Brandon Wilson as Turner, Elwood’s best friend at Nickel Academy; Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is Hattie, Elwood’s grandmother, who raised him; Hamish Linklater is Spencer, Nickel Academy’s corrupt and vindictive White administrator; Fred Hechinger is Harper, Linklater’s henchman who oversees the reform school’s convict labor program; and Jimmie Fails is Mr. Hill, Elwood’s supportive high school teacher.
Nickel Boys trailer
Why we’re excited about Nickel Boys
Formally daring, critically acclaimed, and up for Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay at the 97th Academy Awards? How could we not be? RaMell Ross is a bit of an unknown quantity as a filmmaker, this being his feature directing debut, but everything points to Nickel Boys being one of this year’s must-see films. Make time for it.
