The Nickel Boys

Elwood Curtis works hard, plays by the rules and gets good grades. He's filled to the brim with the speeches of Martin Luther King advocating for love in the face of oppression. And yet, on his way to attending college, gets in the wrong car. The driver is essentially pulled over for driving while black and Elwood - guilty by association - is sent to Nickel Academy.

Playing by the rules and doing right gets you nowhere. Elwood is left scarred after trying to break up a fight. His black body is sold out as labour to the townsfolk - Elwood painting a gazebo Dixie White. His food is sold off to restaurants and grocery stores. And yet King's words reverberate in his head “Do to us what you will and we will still love you.”

Meanwhile Turner, Elwood's friend at Nickel, has a different view. It's about hustle and reliance on the self alone. Seeing how things are run and running around them. He knows a single misstep could mean disappearing out back. Disappearing for good.

It is those two ideas that face off in how to be in the world and how there often is no clear answer.