Tropes become tone poems and trauma gets a newly underscored point of view in a lyrical and gorgeously lensed screen epic based on a popular novel. RaMell Ross, acclaimed documentarian and now director and co-adapter of Nickel Boys (B), puts his camera at the center of his historical drama, and what is intended to place viewers in the shoes of his protagonists succeeds most of the time in creating breakthroughs of empathy while sometimes projecting a scholarly distance from its subject. The story follows two African American boys, Elwood and Turner (Ethan Cole Sharp and Brandon Wilson) who are sent to an abusive reform school called the Nickel Academy in 1960s Florida. The POV style means the audience is a stand-in for the boys, with immersive angles directed downward, action propelling forward and characters such as Elwood’s grandmother (Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor) and the school administrator (Hamish Linklater) talking directly to camera. It’s mostly a clever approach but also shortchanges the central duo of performances from getting their full power with few glimpses of their faces. Ross layers found footage and other cut-ins to provide additional context and instruction, and this flagging technique sometimes distracts the film from its urgency. Overall his bold approach leaps ahead of more conventional narrative features such as The Inspection, but the experiment isn’t as wholly successful as the on-screen alchemy of Origin or Moonlight.