SING SING

A strong setting and indelible, natural performances by a cast that gels well elevate this uplifting prison drama, though the dialogue-centric narrative bogs down the movie regularly.

While doing time, it’s best to do something worthwhile with the time you have. That is the message that Sing Sing propagates, with writer-director Greg Kwedar drawing inspiration from the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts programme (RTA) at American correctional facilities.

He sets his story at the infamous Sing Sing prison, where inmate Divine G. (an excellent Colman Domingo, deservedly Oscar-nominated) serves a sentence for a crime he insists he didn’t commit. As he engages himself fully in a theatre production, he clashes with an upstart performer who at first doesn’t take the production seriously but under Divine G.’s guidance learns to appreciate art’s power to transform.

Sing Sing excels at grounding this tale in reality, not only by smartly lensing the movie in grainy 16mm film stock, but also by casting mostly non-professional actors who are alumni of the RTA programme. Clarence Maclin, who plays the upstart performer, is a true revelation and his chemistry with the other cast members gives Sing Sing much of its emotional power.

Less surefooted is the picture’s screenplay however. By focusing almost exclusively on the build-up to the theatre performance and all but ignoring regular inmate life, the scope for drama is limited. You could even say the film glosses over the ugly side of prison life, purposely homing in on the positives in a negative environment, but this leads to an at times jarring unevenness with the naturalistic performances.

The film also loses points by prolonging the narrative beyond its emotional climax, tagging on an unnecessary five minutes to produce a simplistic, rote, neatly tied up ending wherein the film’s core message – the redemptive power of art – is diluted to a happy ending bromance. So while the Sing Sing is a worthwhile way to spend 100 minutes, it’s not the transformative experience it could have been.

release: 2024

director: Greg Kwedar

starring: Colman Domingo, Clarence Maclin, Sean San José, Paul Raci