Sing Sing: A Review - Prison and the Power of Drama
/****THIS IS A SPOILER FREE REVIEW!! THIS REVIEW CONTAINS ZERO SPOILERS!!****
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
My Recommendation: SEE IT. A simple movie, featuring a terrific performance from Colman Domingo, that is bursting with complexity and humanity.
“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.” - Albert Camus
Sing Sing, written and directed by Greg Kwedar, tells the story of the prisoners who act in the real-life Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) drama program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility.
The film stars Academy Award Best Actor nominee Colman Domingo as well as a group of men who were actually incarcerated and part of the RTA, including Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin and Sean San Jose.
Sing Sing has been in very limited release in theatres since July of 2024, but I only saw it just this past week as I got a screener for it from the Screen Actors Guild….and I’m very glad that I did.
As an acting coach and actor, Sing Sing is right in my wheelhouse. It is a simple film bursting with complexity that celebrates the healing power of both drama and the art of acting. It is also a testament to the fragility, intricacy and complications of humanity.
Regardless of who the actor is, whether it’s Tom Cruise or the third spear-carrier from the left, in almost every case they have gotten into acting in order to try and resolve some trauma. The way they try and resolve it through acting can be different for each person. For example, some people try to become famous in order to find the love they feel they never received or to gain wealth and power to protect themselves or to the feed the ego that their trauma birthed. Or some will try and garner accolades to elevate their crippled self-esteem, or try to find respect by becoming an “artist” to show their commitment and purity to a higher cause. And some might do all of the above as the uses of acting to heal trauma are as diverse and vast as trauma itself, as I can attest from having worked with so many actors and actresses over the years.
What I loved about Sing Sing is that it does an admirable job of showing how acting (or any art) can, for those with the courage to dive in, cut through the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter and the soul of the actor.
Colman Domingo, who was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar last year for Rustin and again this year for Sing Sing, is the heart and soul of this film. Domingo is utterly fantastic as John “Divine G” Whitfield, an inmate of some acclaim who has written books and plays while serving his time.
Domingo gives a subtle yet stirring performance that is filled with such complexity and humanity as to be a marvel. He is at once a saint, yet also crippled by his frailties, such as his ego and his fury at what he sees as an unjust system.
Colman Domingo probably won’t win Best Actor at the Oscars this year, but having seen all the nominated performances I can say unabashedly that he should.
Another stand out is Clarence Maclin who plays himself in the film. Maclin, a former real-life inmate and participant in the RTA, is a thug on the exterior but is a thoughtful, insightful and ambitious artist on the inside.
Maclin can mimic menace at the drop of a hat, but it is when he starts to push back against his “natural” instincts and actually becomes introspective that he comes to life and lights up the screen.
The rest of the real-life former inmates are very good in their roles because they seem like exactly what they are…real people who are kind of uncomfortable acting and being vulnerable in front of others. This discomfort, self-consciousness and amateurism is humanizing and extremely endearing…as well as very funny on a few occasions.
All of the real-life inmates give exceptional performances, but the most notable is Sean San Jose, who plays Mike Mike, a charismatic and charming inmate who is Divine G’s best friend.
Sing Sing has its flaws, and all those flaws fall on writer/director Greg Kwedar as they are structural in nature and diminish the film a bit, but it also has a dramatic vitality and tension to it that is uncommon, and that is to Kwedar’s credit.
Kwedar succinctly captures the prevailing sense of menace and peril of everyday life in prison as well as the suffocating sense of claustrophobia, and this imbues the film with a baseline of drama and a background of tension that befits a prison drama.
Kwedar also does a good job of showing just enough of the inmate’s performances without burdening the film with them. We get a taste and a taste is enough to maintain the spirit of the story without bogging it down in minutia.
It genuinely surprises me that Sing Sing is not nominated for Best Picture at this year's Oscars as it is a movie that would seem to be in the Academy’s sweet spot. But who knows what the Academy cares about anymore?
Regardless of what the Academy thinks, the truth is it is one of the very best films of the year and if you get a chance to see Sing Sing, whether in the theatre or on streaming/VOD, you really should. It isn’t the most deftly directed, or exquisitely acted film you’ll ever see, but it is a profound, efficient and extremely affecting one.
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