‘Sing Sing’: Review

Dir: Greg Kwedar. US. 2023. 107mins 

Telling a fictionalised story primarily based on an precise New York theatre programme for prisoners, Sing Sing attracts energy from its real-world gravitas and Colman Domingo’s commanding central efficiency. Director Greg Kwedar collaborates with former and present inmates to observe the staging of the troupe’s newest play, which proves each cathartic and triggering for these males. If the movie’s narrative typically goes slack, the compensation comes from the script’s cautious examination of how jail can profoundly hurt people — whether or not or not they’re responsible of the crimes the federal government says they’ve dedicated. 

 The script’s heat, crowd-pleasing tenor seeks to offset the potential bleakness

Sing Sing has travelled an extended highway to change into an awards-season contender. Premiering on the Toronto Movie Pageant in 2023, the drama opened within the US and UK in summer season 2024 to usually robust evaluations. Nonetheless, this low-budget indie has solely grossed about $3.4 million worldwide, though doable Academy Award nominations might assist when the image involves streaming.

Divine G (Domingo) has spent years in a New York jail, insistent that he’s harmless and doggedly getting ready himself for his subsequent parole listening to. Within the meantime, he finds solace as a part of Rehabilitation Via The Arts (RTA), a penitentiary programme by which the incarcerated can write and act in performs. Though theatre director Brent (Paul Raci) leads the group, the veteran forged members have a look at Divine G as their best actor and unofficial spokesperson, and he suggests they recruit new performers for his or her subsequent manufacturing — particularly, the charismatic however intimidating Divine Eye (Clarence ’Divine Eye’ Maclin).

Many in Sing Sing’s ensemble are former RTA members enjoying fictionalised variations of themselves, and the easy authenticity that they convey to their roles goes a great distance in the direction of suggesting their characters’ vulnerability and ache. (The movie was shot in a decommissioned New York maximum-security correctional facility.) Kwedar and his longtime artistic companion Clint Bentley — who final labored on 2021’s Jockey — concentrate on tales that require the filmmakers to embed themselves in a selected milieu, and this newest undertaking discovered the duo assembly with Maclin and the real-life Divine G, also called John Whitfield, to construct a story across the internal workings of the RTA programme.

Not surprisingly, the movie options an unvarnished have a look at life in a penitentiary, though the script’s heat, crowd-pleasing tenor seeks to offset the potential bleakness. As Brent and his troupe begin creating their subsequent manufacturing, Sing Sing focuses on the tense rapport between Divine G and Divine Eye, who initially rejects the older man’s makes an attempt to take him beneath his wing. The hostile Divine Eye ultimately connects together with his artistic aspect however, even so, he resents Divine G’s condescending appearing recommendation.

Domingo performs the poetic prisoner as a person who has at all times been dedicated to artwork, however the actor additionally reveals Divine G’s ego and self-absorption — how he has used RTA, partially, to indicate off his expertise as a performer, having fun with the awed admiration of his friends. The poised, surprisingly adept Divine Eye doesn’t simply problem his standing on stage but in addition within the jail yard, refusing to simply accept Divine G’s kindly-older-brother routine, which he feels is impressed by Divine G’s assumption that he’s morally superior to his fellow prisoners. 

Maclin is a revelation, bringing an edgy depth to his function, the character threatening at any second to erupt into violence. However there are additionally haunted depths to Divine Eye, which Maclin brings to the floor. Just like the RTA program itself, Sing Sing argues that the incarcerated needn’t lose their humanity behind bars, and the movie succeeds most when it watches these newbie performers entry tough feelings — like disgrace, anger, guilt and sorrow — in entrance of each other whereas rehearsing their roles. The unique play they’re getting ready, written by Brent primarily based on the prisoners’ disparate concepts, hardly appears a masterpiece, however that doesn’t matter. The possibility for these so-called hardened males to entry their gentler, extra wounded selves is totally the purpose.

The person trajectories of Divine G and Divine Eye — one wrongfully incarcerated, the opposite a frequent offender — are mapped out slightly too neatly and, as arresting as Domingo is, he sometimes should attempt to promote character twists that beg credulity. And whereas audiences will come to care about this troupe — together with actor Sean San Jose, who performs Divine G’s shut buddy and fellow thespian Mike Mike — Sing Sing leans right into a heartwarming finale that feels slightly overly manufactured. Kwedar by no means denies the tough realities of the penitentiary system however, by preferring an in the end hopeful tone, he ultimately falls sufferer to a number of the tropes of the jail drama which his considerate image had, till that time, largely sidestepped.