Mhatt returns once again with Oscar Watcher. He is doing the Lord’s work, watching his way through this year’s many awards contenders so you can decide to invest your time… or not… in a bit of high-brow movie entertainment. Last time he looked at Anora. This time – Sing-Sing.
Sing-Sing
Sing-Sing is directed by Greg Kewdar and written by John H. Richardson, Brent Buell, and Clint Bentley, It is based on The Sing-Sing Follies. It stars Colman Domingo, Paul Raci, Clarence Maclin, and Sean San Jose.
It follows a Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program in Sing-Sing Correctional Facility that offers inmates a distraction from their various confines through acting and producing prison stage productions.
Divine G (Domingo) is a founder of the RTA and an innocent man who uses his time and talent for the theater to stage plays for his fellow inmates as a means to entertain, escape reality, and maybe even raise a few donations. The company is guided and held together by the sage and smooth directorial talents of fellow inmate Brent Buell (Raci).
Buell has written a time travel fantasy called Breakin’ The Mummy’s Code which explores themes of loss, pain, and isolation, not just facts of prison life, but life in general.
Auditions are held, roles are won, and the troupe begins to bond, and we start to relate to the players’ experiences as they navigate prison life, the fragility of this illusory freedom, and the impressive task of nurturing passion in an environment designed to enervate.
We see how the unavoidable reality of their situation challenges and informs their process as actors as they struggle with identity, finding artists within as a necessary means of personal rehabilitation. Our conduit to the process is the rough newcomer Clarence (Maclin) who learns to overcome emotional constraints and compartmentalize, then channel his anger into transmutable emotions.
It doesn’t matter what you are in for; it’s all about how you can deliver a scene, recite a line, energize a room, and ultimately contribute to some necessary escapism for cast and audience alike.
Not much else to say here. Sing Sing is an emotional movie, it makes you feel the feels and is greater than the sum of its parts. Less a prison movie and more about the value and purpose of art, not only for escapism but to explore the universal feelings of confinement.
If you don’t empathize with at least some part of this, you are truly monsters. I will give this movie major points for the production. It not only used actual and former inmates playing themselves, it was produced as a collective where everyone owns an equal share of the film.
What You Should or Shouldn’t Watch For?
Colman Domingo for Best Actor. Best Picture. Best Screenplay though I’m not sure if Sing-Sing counts as Original or Adapted.
Only recommended viewing for those who fearlessly feel, doting grandchildren needing a way to keep Nana out of trouble for a few hours, anyone who wonders if Colman Domingo can channel Denzel Washington and, if nothing else, a chance to enjoy some more of the immensely likeable Paul Raci.