I cannot put this any other way:
Put Sing Sing at the TOP of your “must see” list but do yourself a favor and go in as cold as you possibly can. No trailers, no on-line trivia, no commercials, no interviews, no nothing.
Academy Award nominee Colman Domingo (who is 53 of 60 wins in his career overall for awards) plays John “Divine G” Whitfield, an inmate in the title’s maximum-security prison who founds the prison’s theater group. Performing two productions a year, they are coming off a particularly successful run and decide to stretch their acting muscles a bit with the help of a script written by their volunteer director, Brent Buell (Paul Raci, an Academy Award nominee himself for Sound of Metal, and has a great story himself). When the group enlists the help of another inmate (Clarence Maclin), who is one of the toughest guys in the yard, the journeys of the entire company of artists go to the highest of highs and the lowest of lows as they navigate the production and their own lives.
By the time the lights went up after the film (which I was also privileged to be part of a Q&A with writer/producer Clint Bentley), my jaw was on the floor. Going in only knowing the basic plot of Sing Sing, the script hit me straight in the feels. All the performances are pitch-perfect, and being shot on 16mm film versus video furthered the mood and stripped-down feel that the story already conveys. With the exteriors shot at the prison with interiors shot at off-line facilities of its ilk (for obvious reasons), the material itself is treated with the respect it deserves, not pulling punches in its realism.
One of the things discussed at the Q&A itself was the fact that Sing Sing does not use any of the typical tropes that a “prison film” is known for from Hollywood. The back stories of the characters are not really told until almost the third act deliberately to keep the audience engaged in the story itself and the present state of its characters. By not doing the stereotypical things that others like it have done before, this film shows that it understands how strong the story itself is and can carry that weight all the way through.
I am being cagey on purpose with some of the details here because it is those details that take this film to a whole new level. With wins at both South by Southwest and the Seattle International Film Festival along with its premiere done at last year’s Toronto Film Festival and two showings at this year’s Dallas International Film Festival, I cannot recommend it enough for multiple viewings. I will be seeing it again myself now that I have its full picture to see what else I can glean from it, and I fully expect there to be a TON of buzz all over the industry. See it now!
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