Films » Nickel Boys
Released in
Chronicles the powerful friendship between two young Black teenagers navigating the harrowing trials of reform school together in Florida.
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My watch history
Nickel Boys
I absolutely loathe the way this was filmed. I think the performances and the story have merit, but I just can’t appreciate them.
The obvious elephant in the room is the POV shots. I don’t outright hate the idea, but it’s way too shaky-cam-y for me, and in places it’s very obnoxious about not looking at things you want to look at. I actually quite liked the opening as you got glimpses of Elwood through reflections, but I wish it’d have snapped out to a normal perspective after it establishes the character.
On top of that there’s the aspect ratio, the random cutaways, archive footage, jumps in perspective, flash-forwards, screechy discordant soundtrack, and so on. It just feels messy to me, and distracts me from what’s going on.