NICKEL BOYS: Holding On to Your Self Even When Abused

How do you hold onto yourself amid threat, abuse, and constant attempts to make you feel “less than?” Elwood Curtis does, in RaMell Ross’s powerful, disturbing, and timely 2024 film, Nickel Boys. Abuse can tear a person down. Create hopelessness, despair, and resignation. Repeated abuse, with no way to protect yourself, makes it difficult for many traumatized people to remain determined to do more than merely survive. Many who are abused fight against a hopelessness that can eat away at you. Some give up. Ellwood never does. Even when he unfairly ends up in an abusive reform school in the 1960s South. What does he have that others don’t? He’s got his Nana. She’s always been there for him. Ellwood knows that he is loved.

Never Underestimate Love

Children need love. It’s the essential ingredient to grow into a confident person. Otherwise, you can’t believe in yourself, know your value, and hold onto your Self in hard times. That almost doesn’t happen for Elwood. Luckily, it does. Because of his Nana.

Elwood’s life doesn’t start so well. His mom is self-absorbed. Puts her needs first. Runs off with a man. Leaves Elwood (Ethan Herisse) without the mom he needs. He almost doesn’t have love. But Nana (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) sees. She steps in and stands up for him. Nana gives him the love his mother doesn’t. So, Ellwood has a better start than the other Nickel Boys.

He can always count on Nana. That’s a big thing. Nana believes in him. Teaches him to speak up. Protest injustice. Stand up for what’s right. To know he deserves more. Still in High School, Ellwood donates half his paycheck to protest: “Glad you felt the need to stand up.” “Next time, Nana, I want to do the civil disobedience part.” She stays quiet, looking proud.

His High School teacher, Mr. Hill (Jimmie Fails) sees his potential, too, and helps him gain college entrance: “Imagine a textbook with nothing to cross out (those white man’s epithets).” Elwood says, “No, we can’t afford it,” but Mr. Hill tells him it is free. It’s a “Colored College.” So, Elwood’s on his way, hitchhiking to Melvin Griggs Technical School – right when the Civil Rights Movement (and Selma) begins. Nana taught him to speak up for what is right. Support makes being brave easier.

But because he naively gets into the wrong car on his way to college, “brave” takes a different turn. Still, having someone always in your corner makes a big difference. Yet, Ellwood won’t cave in, no matter the outcome in Nickel Boys.

Someone Who’s Always There

Nana saves him from being a scared, sad, and lonely boy in Nickel Boys: “I’m not going anywhere. Oh, Elwood, come here. Nana’s not going anywhere.” That gives him confidence. Security. Safety. Elwood can do what he likes and imagine pursuing his dreams. Nana says: “Elwood didn’t need much raising. He spent more time reading than anything else.”

You don’t have to turn to trouble if you have someone in your corner. That too often doesn’t happen, especially for the boys who end up at Nickel Academy. Trouble probably offers them a kind of camaraderie. An outlet for pent-up resentments.

Of course, there are plenty of resentments when you’re unfairly targeted for the color of your skin. Anger. Fear, even. But Ellwood sees only the tip of the Iceberg. Of the racism and cruelty of Whites (unbelievable as that is), before Nickel Academy.

But when you have love (and books), your resentments can turn into something useful. Even, surprisingly, at Nickel Academy. That is, at least, after Elwood is tragically killed. He shouldn’t have been there anyway, but there’s no justice when the system turns against you. Nana tries. The lawyer fails. He runs off with their money, it turns out.

Ellwood must find a way to survive in a horrifying place where his life is in danger – just for being who he is. Turner (Brandon Wilson) helps. He’s not violent like the others; he’s closer in temperament to Ellwood. But he doesn’t have a Nana, so he must fend for himself, sometimes almost at Ellwood’s expense.

Yet, when it comes right down to it, Turner is a friend. Another person always there. He advises Ellwood how to survive at Nickel Academy (he’s a repeat admittee). He knows the ropes and how to be cunning.

For Turner, surviving means: keep to yourself, avoid unnecessary conflict, and focus on following the rules to “graduate” from the institution. That also means not protesting for what’s right.

Ellwood Refuses to be Broken

As Turner tells him: “No one’s going to get you out of here. Not your grandmother. Not your lawyer. Only You.”

But … getting out of Nickel Academy for Boys is unlikely. You could: “Serve your time or age out. Court gets you out and that’s a miracle. You could die, they could kill you. You could run.”

In Nickel Boys, Mr. Spencer (Hamish Linklater) instructs the boys how to move up the ranks and become “an Ace.” An Ace graduates out. (That’s only for White boys, though.)

Turner begins to show Ellwood the realities of Nickel Academy. The beatings and “the Machine.” Those punishments are “getting off easy.” There’s also the sweat box. But if they really have it against you, there’s Boot Hill. That’s not in the books. You could be one of the boys who “disappear.” Boys whose families are told they ran. (“Disappeared” is the code word for “killed.”)

Ellwood struggles with all the wrongs at Nickel, and not speaking out. After all, he told Nana he wanted to do civil disobedience the next time. Yet, there’s nothing civil at Nickel. Even the Black guards have sold out and turned against the Black boys.

Cruelty is everywhere.

The “powers that be” find every way to accuse you, find things wrong with you, or things you’ve “done wrong.” They set you up and punish you for nothing, or things they’ve engineered.

Nickel Academy is the ultimate portrait of gaslighting in Nickel Boys. It’s hard not to break down.

Yet, gaslighting only works if you believe you’re at fault, not “good,” and deserve what you get. Or it brings rage and retaliatory violence. That’s not Ellwood, though. He’s brutalized, but he has other ideas.

Ellwood starts taking notes on every legal infraction, every corrupt action, at Nickel Academy. In Nickel Boys, he’s determined to expose what is going on there: the abuse, killings, and the slavery.

Holding onto Your Self

Turner’s philosophy is all about how to come out alive. That’s an important thing, in Nickel Boys.

Yet, how do you (really) survive abuse that’s bent on tearing you down, forcing you to do manual labor, possibly even sexually using you, and creating shame – without you beginning to believe it?

In Ellwood’s world, it’s holding onto your Self. It’s self-respect. That’s what you have when someone loves you, believes in you, sees you for who you are, and never blames or abandons you.

You end up believing in yourself. Not doubting what you see, or your instincts. (Even if you didn’t get this early in your life, it can come later.) And, Ellwood never backs down from what is right.

He can’t respect himself if he does. So, he keeps his detailed notebook, planning to get it to authorities to expose Nickel Academy, and to save the inmate boys from the abusive practices.

Despite Turner’s warnings and reservations, Ellwood convinces him to slip this account to the Government Investigators who show up on Investigation Day (to a deceitfully “polished” Nickel Academy, good food and “fake-kind treatment” of the boys).

No, Ellwood does not give up.

Yet Ellwood’s actions lead to severe repercussions. The Sweat Box and, likely Boot Hill, if not for Turner doing his best to save him – already near dead.  Turner makes a plan for them to escape.

Turner loves Ellwood, too.

To Protest! (Or, Not to Protest?)

Yet, even with love and self-respect, you can’t easily escape if there are predators all around. Watching you. Ready to jump.

In Nickel Boys, the Sidney Portier film The Defiant Ones plays in the background.

It’s a film about a white man and a black man who bond with each other for survival. Yet, the white man at Nickel Academy, Mr. Harper (Fred Hechinger), uses Ellwood and Turner to siphon money. Money for him.

(Is there any chance for protest or defiance in Nickel Boys?)

Harper seems “friendly enough” (when he’s getting something), but, unfortunately, he’s not.

He’s aligned with Nickel Academy, their rules, and amoral practices. After all, sadly enough, he’s white. And, so he turns on Ellwood in the end. Shoots Ellwood in the back, as he tries to escape. It’s the ultimate of betrayals.

But do you think Ellwood would regret his protest in Nickel Boys? I bet not.

He protested civilly, unlike the abuses he suffered. And, Ellwood held onto him(Self) in his sacrifice to save others.