Sing Sing is a maximum-security prison in New York, holding up to 1,700 inmates.  Within the walls, some of the inmates participate in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program, a theatre group led by Brent Buell (Paul Raci) that allows participants a creative outlet during their time served. One participant, John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo), has taken to the program and is eyeing a leading role in the next production, is charged with bringing in new members.  The troupe welcomes in Clarance “Divine Eye” Maclin (Clarance Maclin), but the two men have vastly different approaches to the role of art and therapy in their lives. 

Greg Kwedar directs Sing Sing from a script he cowrote with Clint Bentley, itself an adaptation of John H. Richardson’s 2005 Esquire article “The Sing Sing Follies.”  The 107 minute film follows the troupe as they develop the self-sourced play “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code,” originally written by Brent Buell and featuring a wide range of characters from Hamlet to Robin Hood, an Egyptian Prince, and Freddy Kruger.  The time traveling comedy lends itself to the framework of the film, while also occasionally breaking away from the rehearsal space to follow Divine G during his parole hearings.  

Barely released theatrically by A24 who was asleep at the wheel with this highly lauded title which they acquired out of the 2023 edition of the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival, it graced only 191 screens; as opposed to the over 300 screens which their Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022) re-release was granted in that same, steamy, late summer corridor. Sing Sing was finally granted something of a wider release, though on a still-pitiful 560 screens only after it was heavily nominated by the Indie Spirit Awards and put on the final ballot for consideration by 3 branches in the Academy.  While simultaneously withholding the title from the loyal audience base they have built up over the past decade or so, they had the audacity to release a line of merch on their web store putting out the Bryce Dessner score on vinyl in August and making the Blu-ray available for pre-order the same weekend of its January “re-release” in theatres.  For the exceptionally affluent, they also staged a live production of “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code” in New York City, followed by a cast and filmmaker Q&A.  A platform release for a smaller titles is not uncommon, but to call their late summer, toes in the water rollout a nationwide release, and then continue to tease the title across their social media channels for months without even a peep of their pivoted strategy made this one of the most frustrating release patterns in this company’s awkward and unruly adolescence. 

To divorce the sins of the distributor and begin looking at the film on its own terms, Domingo is bathed in the spotlight and while he is the glue that holds the film together, he is a very gracious star to his ensemble.  He leads the film with a desperate and all-consuming passion, allowing the film to present a tender, human side of these inmates; a quality not often seen even in modern prison-set character dramas without becoming overly saccharine.  His gravitas helps to thread the needle and lift the performances of the wider cast, many of whom are graduates of the RTA program and are playing themselves in the film. It creates an interesting balance as this is not, for example, Sean Baker homing his lens in on people off of the street, but these are actors in their own right who have studied and developed a type of therapeutic theatre on their own terms, but with Domingo as a bit of a lighthouse, here, he helps the cast make that leap from stage to screen.   

Unfortunately, Bently and Kwedar’s script is rather unbalanced and content at not interrogating these characters so that while they are not traditional archetype stand-ins, they do not feel as fully fleshed out as they should be, either.  We get the sense of depth from the importance of the overall narrative and the importance which the story is presented through the rest of the filmmaking rather than through character.  Possibly this was done as a courtesy to not relitigate their time served, or possibly done to try and avoid the tropes that so often turn prison dramas into pressure cookers of testosterone, but whatever the reasons, it is an admirable effort and importantly never feels like it is exploiting these men and their stories even though it does struggle to tell them.  It is one of the rare cases where a talking head documentary may have been the most appropriate way to tell this story and share the importance of this program to a wider audience, but by going the narrative route, Sing Sing does manage to unlock a level of compassion that can often be just out of reach when the coldness of reality presented in a documentary causes audiences to put up more internal defenses as they watch sometimes uncomfortable scenarios play out on screen.  Notably, the film picks up with the RTA program already well established, so it is not an underdog story of someone trying to create something from nothing, but rather the point has already been proven. Art is an essential part of our human experience. 

Even as modern documentaries have gotten bolder and more creative in their presentation, the freedom which narrative filmmaking allows shines through here.  Cinematographer Pat Scola brings a warmth throughout, even to the wide, empty, cold walls of the rehearsal space, creating a safety net for both the cast to get in touch with their creative impulses and for audiences to let their guard down to the point where we can forget that we are in a prison until the group breaks and we return to the calamitous cafeteria or the fenced in yards.  His empathetic camera helps us to connect to the ensemble, even when the script stumbles, but it remains absolutely fascinated by Domingo, always seeking him out, and when it find him, it likes in to stay tight on his face. Domingo, in turn, is able to cast a spell over the audiences, one that is often reserved for live stage productions.  Sure, live theatre is a pivotal device in the film so it makes sense that it is well highlighted and well shot, but so often the screen still gets in the way of films that take place on the stage.  Here, behind the heavy walls of Sing Sing, there is that perfect alchemy of live theatre, real life, and the artifice of the camera that creates something truly unique and – in a way that can almost absolve Bently and Kwedar – remains special beyond words.