When Colson Whitehead’s The Nickel Boys, about the experiences of two Black teenagers in a horrific juvenile reformatory, won the Kirkus Prize in 2019, our judges called it “direct, accessible, and unrelenting both as allegory and as cautionary tale. This is our history. It is our story.” Now that novel has inspired a stunning film adaptation by Oscar-nominated director RaMell Ross, starring newcomer Ethan Cole Sharp, The Way Back’s Brandon Wilson, Origin’s Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, and Hamilton’s Daveed Diggs. The film’s limited theatrical release begins on Dec. 13.

In Whitehead’s book, which also won the Pulitzer Prize, Elwood Curtis is a smart, curious, and law-abiding teen in 1960s Tallahassee, Florida, who is sentenced to Nickel Academy, a reformatory school in the town of Eleanor, after accepting a ride by a man who, it turns out, is driving a stolen car. Elwood had been hitchhiking his way to Melvin Griggs Technical, a Black college, to start attending classes there. He still hopes to pursue that dream after a brief sentence at Nickel but soon finds that the academy, despite its stated goal of returning inmates to society “with purpose and character fitting for a good citizen,” is a place that some young men never leave. He eventually befriends a fellow inmate known only as Turner, who gives him advice for survival in a place with racist, corrupt, and abusive staffers who sometimes take defiant kids “out back,” never to be seen again. In a frame story set decades later, a former inmate, now living in New York, reads stories of college students unearthing corpses on the site of Nickel Academy, and he becomes determined to finally reveal his complicated story.

It’s a deeply affecting novel, with many wrenching scenes inspired by events at the real-life Dozier School for Boys in Marianna, Florida; it even employs a final, poignant twist that many readers won’t see coming. However, Whitehead tells the story in a relatively straightforward and conventional third-person, past-tense narration. The film is faithful to the events of Whitehead’s text (it’s co-written by Ross and Joslyn Barnes) but draws additional power from its decidedly unusual filmmaking choices. It’s almost entirely told from first-person perspectives—that is, viewers see nearly every scene through the eyes of Elwood or Turner. At times, scenes are repeated to show both points of view, offering new insights and emotional resonances.

It’s a profoundly immersive style of storytelling, and one that almost seems like a gimmick in early scenes, even as director Ross deftly summarizes events in Elwood’s early life. The filmmaker is unafraid to slow the action to a crawl and dwell on quiet moments, as when a very young Elwood silently watches his housekeeper mother work, or an older Elwood, just before his arrest, simply walks down a road, taking in his surroundings while looking for a ride; they’re some of the film’s most memorable moments. Before long, one realizes that Ross’ ambitious experiment in perspective isn’t just a flashy introduction—it’s the way this story will be told. Yet it never becomes a distraction, or, more precisely, a subtraction; it only adds to the film’s emotional impact, allowing viewers to get as close as possible to Elwood’s and Turner’s lived experiences.

One never feels the artifice (as one does in a found-footage film like The Blair Witch Project); one never wonders why the cameraperson keeps rolling. In fact, one never senses a camera at all. Viewers go through the same moments of happiness, sadness, optimism, despair, and fear as the main characters do. In this context, Sharp, as Elwood, and Wilson, as Turner, both deliver riveting performances, as does Ellis-Taylor as Elwood’s strong, devoted grandmother; Diggs, as the adult version of one of the boys, is also excellent in his handful of scenes. It truly is a film unlike any other, and a testament to Ross’, and the actors’, profound talent. Moviegoers may find it a tough experience to shake, for a long time afterward. For a film that unflinchingly addresses the legacy of trauma, that may very well be the point.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.