Strong films come from schools gone wrong

Streaming services rather than theaters provide the chance to see several recent projects that share the sad but meaningful topic of schools gone wrong. The Nickel Boys, Small Things Like These, and The New Boy bring top notch talent and quality to a subject that while unsettling, deserves recognition.  Stemming from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel and earning a best-picture Oscar nomination, The Nickel Boys barely played theaters and took months before arriving on Amazon Prime. Granted, the movie requires a shift from mainstream expectations, partly from a different appearance told behind the camera from a narrator’s point of view. Adapting the story with co-writer Joslyn Barnes, director RaMell Ross cleverly handles creative challenges in a story springing from a real-life reformatory. A sad history also steps in with Hulu’s Small Things Like These, which likewise missed a big theater circuit despite impressive credentials. Claire Keegan’s short novel quickly edged into a Christmas classic with its Dickensian look at Ireland’s infamous Magdeline Laundries, a system that abused unwed mothers. Told from the perspective of a man whose own mother barely escaped the system, the story’s deceptive simplicity belies its title: small things like these actually represent giant issues. Still, little deeds fill much time in Enda Walsh’s screenplay, and director Tim Mielants benefits greatly from casting Cillian Murphy, whose expressive face needs little dialogue to reveal internal thoughts. The idea of religious fervor gone wrong also shows up in The New Boy, set at an orphanage for aboriginal children. Director Warwick Johnson recreates a bleak 1940s Australian landscape though the key to opening the story of a nun and her charge comes from casting. Fortunately, young Aswan Reid holds his own with Cate Blanchet. Whether a New Boy, a Nickel Boy or a Small Thing, these films deserve the wider attention that streaming offers.