'Nickel Boys' book vs. movie: What's changed in the adaptation already getting Oscar buzz

Spoiler alert! This story contains major details about the plot and ending of "The Nickel Boys" (now showing in New York theaters, opening in Los Angeles Dec. 20 and releasing wide in January).

History is a matter of perspective.

"Nickel Boys," directed by RaMell Ross and adapted from Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, follows Elwood (Ethan Herisse) and Turner (Brandon Wilson), two Black teens in Florida in the 1960s who are attending reform school Nickel Academy. The movie is mostly told through first-person perspectives of the boys, with the lens as their eyes.

Nickel, a brutal facility where students are subjected to beatings, sex abuse and racism, is inspired by Florida's Dozier School for Boys, which closed in 2011. In the film, real photos from Dozier appear.

While the movie is rather faithful to the plot and characters in Whitehead's novel, there are some changes. Here are the biggest differences between the "Nickel Boys" book and film:

How Elwood hears speeches from Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the novel, one of the key moments in Elwood's life, presented as a catalyst for his feelings about justice and rights, is when he receives the album "Martin Luther King at Zion Hill" for Christmas in 1962, and he listens to the speeches on the record repeatedly.

In the film, he doesn't receive the album right away. Instead, a young Elwood sees King's speech "Our God is Marching On" on a store's TV display. Years later, his teacher Mr. Hill plays a recording of another of King's speeches for the class.

After Elwood has been arrested, in the days before he is sent to Nickel Academy, Mr. Hill gives the album of King's speeches to Elwood.

More: 'The Reformatory' by Tananarive Due is a haunted tale of survival, horror and hope

Turner's interactions with Harriet

Elwood's grandmother, Harriet, has more interactions with Turner in the film. In the book, it's not clear if Turner and Harriet ever cross paths, but the two do, literally, in the movie. Harriet first meets Turner while walking on the Nickel Academy campus, after she's unable to visit Elwood and turned away by staff.

Harriet speaks with Turner and asks if he can pass along a letter to her grandson. In a sweet moment — one of the few such scenes of warmth in the film — she also hugs Turner, since she can't hug Elwood.

Turner also visits Harriet after his escape from Nickel in the movie, so it appears as though she knows what happened to Elwood and may even have encouraged Turner in taking her grandson's place.

What happens in the White House

In both the novel and the movie, the White House (also called the Ice Cream Factory by some of the boys) is a building centrally located on campus where students are taken at night for punishment and beatings. The White House is based on a building that was at the real-life Dozier School.

There's no shortage of brutality in the book or the film, but the movie doesn't explicitly show the beatings, abuse or racist acts. The novel doesn't exactly dwell on the savage moments, but the cruel acts experienced and the aftermath are more clearly depicted.

Mr. Earl isn't the same

Mr. Earl, who viciously beats the students and is the right-hand man of Nickel Academy superintendent Mr. Spencer, is white in the novel, but he is Black in the film and played by Escalante Lundy.

But one event centered on Mr. Earl is absent from the movie. In the book, Mr. Earl is unknowingly poisoned by Jaimie at a holiday luncheon and hospitalized. Mr. Earl survives but doesn't return to Nickel and is replaced by someone who is crueler to the boys and beats Elwood during his second visit to the White House.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'Nickel Boys': Biggest differences between the book and movie