Plot
Elwood Curtis’ college dreams are shattered on a two-lane Florida highway. Bearing the burden of an innocent misdemeanor, he is sentenced to the underworld of Nickel Academy, a brutal reform school nestled in the Jim Crow South. He meets another counselor, the all-seeing Turner. The two black teenagers form an alliance: Turner offers basic survival advice, while Elwood clings to his optimistic worldview. Against the backdrop of the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement, Elwood and Turner’s existence appears worlds away from the brilliant oratory of the Rev. Martin Luther King. Despite Nickel’s brutality, Elwood struggles to cling to his humanity, awakening a new perspective in Turner.
