The film stars Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, who was nominated for an Oscar in 2022 for her performance opposite Will Smith in King Richard.
Nickel Boys focuses on Elwood, a promising young man who is on his way to college when he accepts a lift from a man who pulls over to ask where he’s headed.
The car turns out to be stolen – and when police stop the vehicle, Elwood is transported to the nearby Nickel Academy, a so-called reform school where boys are purportedly taught how to become good men, but in reality are beaten and abused, with some dying from their injuries.
The boys at the academy spend long hours working or doing community service. Despite slavery having been abolished a century earlier, the academy is essentially used as a way to exploit free black labour.
The novel is based partly on the real-life Dozier School in Florida, which operated for 111 years and was later revealed to have been highly abusive.
An investigation in 2010 found 31 unmarked graves of pupils whose deaths had not been recorded, and many more have been discovered by other investigations in the years since. It’s now understood more than 100 boys died at the school.
