UB Spotlight: Ethan Herisse + Brandon Wilson Talk ‘Nickel Boys’

“Nickel Boys” hits theaters December 13th, via Orion Pictures.

Set in Tallahassee, Florida in 1962, against the backdrop of the flourishing Civil Rights Movement, “Nickel Boys” emotional center is Elwood Curtis (Ethan Herisse), a teenager bent on dreaming a world bigger than the circumscribed existence of his segregated community of Frenchtown.

High-achieving and curious, he’s full of scrap and optimism. Energized by the Movement and the promises set aloft by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s soaring oratory, Elwood is on the cusp of adulthood, mere days away from attending his first college classes, when an innocent wrong-place/wrong-time misstep reroutes and shatters the course of his life.

The film shadows the harrowing story of two Black boys — Elwood and Turner — negotiating their hard-time served in a severe reform school, while attempting to claim, protect and nurture their own humanity.

Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Hattie, Elwood’s grandmother and sole guardian, who supports and champions his dreams.

Based on the real story of the infamous Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida, a reformatory that operated for 111 years and made headlines in the early 2000s, as a notoriously savage institution.

Hundreds of men came forward to tell decades-old stories about abuse—physical and emotional—that they had endured during their time served at the state-run institution, just west of Tallahassee.

While the institution closed in 2011, an on-going investigation determined that more than 100 boys had died on the grounds, nearly half of them buried in unmarked graves.

Elwood Curtis’s college dream shatters alongside a two-lane Florida highway. Bearing the brunt of an innocent misstep, he’s sentenced to the netherworld of Nickel Academy, a brutal reformatory sunk deep in the Jim Crow South. He encounters another ward, the seen-it-all Turner.

The two Black teens strike up an alliance: Turner dispensing fundamental tips for survival, Elwood, clinging to his optimistic worldview.

Backdropped by the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Elwood and Turner’s existence appear worlds away from Rev. Martin Luther King’s burnished oratory.

Despite Nickel’s brutality, Elwood strives to hold onto his humanity, awakening a new vision for Turner.

Starring; Ethan Herisse, Brandon Wilson, Hamish Linklater, Fred Hechinger, Daveed Diggs, and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor.

Directed by RaMell Ross, screenplay by RaMell Ross & Joslyn Barnes and based on the book “The Nickel Boys” by Colson Whitehead.

Check Out The UB Spotlight: Ethan Herisse + Brandon Wilson Talk “Nickel Boys!”

“‘We must believe in our souls that we are somebody, that we are significant, that we are worthful, and we must walk the streets of life every day with this sense of dignity and this sense of somebody-ness.’ The record went round and around like an argument that always returned to its unassailable premise, and Dr. King’s words filled the front room of the shotgun house.”

— Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys