Colman Domingo plays a wrongfully incarcerated man balancing his role in a comedic play with reforming a fellow inmate and a clemency hearing in this powerful A24 prison drama.
A24 has had remarkable success both with critics and on the awards circuit with their adult dramas, from the unanimously praised Asian romance Past Lives and Lee Isaac Chung’s debut Minari to the Best Actor and Makeup Oscar-receiving film adaptation of The Whale as well as Moonlight, the niche studio’s first-ever Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards. The boutique label could very well have another award success on the horizon with Sing Sing, which sets a riveting standard for the rest of this year’s slate of releases as one of its best.
Sing Sing gets its title from the New York-based correctional facility in which this narrative takes place. Within the prison’s walls, Divine G (Colman Domingo) is an African American man serving a life sentence for a crime he didn’t commit preparing for an upcoming clemency hearing. In the meantime, he gets by writing his own plays and acting in the penitentiary’s theater troupe as a part of its Rehabilitation Through The Arts program. After a chance encounter with Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin (playing himself in his first feature film role) who he sees talent in, Divine G invites him to their company, to which Clarence warily agrees.
When the theater division’s director Brent Buell (Paul Raci) calls everyone together to help decide which play they should perform for the upcoming season, Divine G nominates one of his own tragic plays, until Clarence proposes they put on a comedy, based on the truth that all they do is put on dramatic plays, and that the prisoners here are looking for something more humorous and entertaining to help get them through the day and forget they’re serving jail time.
From there, the prisoners suggest all the most absurd places and characters to have in this original piece, ranging from King Tut and Prince Hamlet to Roman gladiators and even Freddy Krueger, and Brent cobbles it all together into a bizarre but cohesive whole in the form of Breakin’ The Mummy’s Code. Meanwhile, Clarence struggles to wrap his head around the therapeutic process of acting while fighting his urge to defend himself over any slight that crosses his path, but Divine G is up for the challenge to help him every step of the way.
And while the acting from everyone in Sing Sing is excellent across the board, it’s Maclin who steals the show by selling his progression from street hustler to rehabilitated actor with a remarkable naturalism. Meanwhile, Colman Domingo turns in another great performance in a career already full of magnetizing work, meandering across the screen with commanding energy like a gladiator even when he’s out of his Roman costume, and displaying great strength during quiet parts of reflection and longing for freedom.
Even the bit players around both Domingo and Maclin contribute incredible realism to the ensemble, as they consist entirely of retrained ex-prisoners. One such scene sees Sean “Dino” Johnson (again, playing himself) implore Divine Eye to calm himself with an affecting vulnerability that can be seen in the tears formed in his eyes, as if he’s recalling his own horrible memories of violence he had witnessed behind bars at that moment.
Greg Kwedar also directs Sing Sing with a restrained approach that frames the prisoners both real and performed in a manner that allows the viewer to see their humanity and dignity. One such example is the use of rack focuses to wide shots that intimately show this band of prisoners working on their play from afar, as well as instances where characters walk into focus from the out of focus background as if to say these men are the real faces of reformation in the prison system and are therefore worthy of acceptance into the world after paying their debt to society. What’s also commendable is the handheld camerawork and naturalist cinematography that adds a gritty realism to the drama, such as when the camera pans back and forth from Clarence and a fellow prisoner in a heated early exchange.
The writing of Sing Sing is also strong from start to finish as it highlights the brotherhood that exists within Sing Sing’s prison walls, such as a tender sequence where Divine G informs Clarence that instead of using a racial slur to describe each other, they say ‘beloved’ as a remedial measure. And intimate exchanges between Divine G and his cellmate Mike Mike (Sean San Jose) about their lives on the outside flow with delicate power as striking displays of male vulnerability.
Sing Sing stands out for conjuring great empathy for its cast of characters, but the filmic effects, while admirably implemented, distract from the groundedness instead of being there for emphasis, if only because they were added to the edit digitally after the fact. What’s also worth noting is that the film veers a little too much on the sensitive side in its portrayal of prison life to feel a hundred percent authentic. Apart from a brief furor where a guard assaults a rambunctious prisoner early on with Divine G right in front of him in a prisoner lineup one morning and a graphic story Dino tells of an inmate getting sliced from ear to ear, that’s as far as the film chooses to go as far as depicting the Sing Sing prison’s dangerous infamy.
But Sing Sing’s ultimate goal is to tell a true story about a valiant and often successful effort to mold criminals back into respectable citizens, and it does so with an unforgettable heart and enough restraint to move audiences to tears more than once throughout its 107 minute runtime. Theater goers will be floored by the phenomenal performances from both the professionals and ex-convicts that round out the cast, be amazed at Clarence Marlin’s progression from gangster to upstanding denizen, and want to learn more about RTA programs like the one depicted on screen. It’s a narrative that persuades, informs, and entertains while being captivating with its emotional center, and that’s why Sing Sing is in a class by itself, and one of the best of 2024.