I wish I was more in love with director RaMell Ross’s striking and avant-garde stylistic vision for Nickel Boys. The director previously received an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature for his similarly unconventional aesthetic in Hale County This Morning, This Evening, which focuses on the Black community in Hale County, Alabama. (While researching for this review, I discovered that Ross’s inspiration for that earlier film was Godfrey Reggio’s Qatsi cycle of films. I had already heard excellent things about Hale County, but, as the Qatsi trilogy is one of my cinematic touchstones, I’m now more determined to catch up with Ross’s 2018 film.)
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The themes and social commentary of Blindspotting are both timely and important, but the movie’s overall effect is one of slightness. That slightness is mostly a function of the way co-screenwriters and stars Daveed Diggs and Rafael Casal chose to mix comedy and drama in their examination of gentrification, race relations, and toxic friendships. The result is uneven and too episodic, with comedic interludes that don’t quite fit alongside harrowing depictions of everything from lethal police misconduct to a young child getting his hands on a loaded gun. These moments, though, and many more like them, are incredibly powerful, and Diggs and Casal’s screenplay handle them with care and a great deal of emotional intelligence.
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