'Nickel Boys' review: A masterful work of friendship, violence, and memory

RaMell Ross' Nickel Boys is one of those rare Hollywood productions that feels aesthetically transformative.

The film is told, for the most part, through first -person point of view, a tall ask for audiences accustomed to more traditional filmmaking.

Ross avoids the tendency to luxuriate in the visually traumatic; instead, he maneuvers around cinematic exploitation by embodying the bone-deep effects of trauma.

Much of the movie unfolds across gentle scenes of blossoming friendship and mutual understanding.

In these moments, the movie's self-imposed visual constraints also become its biggest strengths.

Ross ' adaptation, co-written by Joslyn Barnes , feels fully embodied in its mood and motions, as an adolescent Elwood catches glimpses of himself in reflective surfaces.

Nickel Boys is a magnificent literary translation.

Director David Ross ' film deftly captures the silent poetry between Whitehead 's words.

The film's use of POV also brings to mind the work of Barry Jenkins' work of The Underground Railroad .

Nickel Boys will open on Dec. 13 in NYC and Los Angeles .