Sing Sing 

Greg Kwedar’s Sing Sing (2024) opens on a stage, where an actor recites a soliloquy from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We could be anywhere. 

He delivers his performance with such emotion, such beauty. "Swift as a shadow, short as any dream ... " he must be a star of the stage, revered among his peers. 

And he is – in prison. 

After the play, the actors file off the stage laughing and joking. They shed their theatre costumes for the costumes of their imprisonment and stand in neat rows for counting. The transformation is complete. We have left the realms of escapism and are back – in Sing Sing Prison, New York.

This film has a universality that transcends its penitentiary setting, yet the film is concerned with more than emotional truth. It’s a film inspired by a true story about the Rehabilitation Through the Arts Program (RTA), featuring non-actors playing themselves, reprising their former “roles” as inmates on the silver screen. Their performances are profound. 

It's a harsh, dehumanising place inside the prison system of the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world. Yet through the RTA program the participants fight back, embarking on a quest to “become human again”. This journey gives the film a different type of realism to cousins in the prison drama genre like The Shawshank Redemption (1994) or hard-hitting documentaries like 13th (2016).

After their performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, our cast insists “no more Shakespeare”. Yet the film is Shakespearean in a way that goes beyond lines of verse. It tells the story of a man punished for a crime he did not commit and his search for happiness in the dark little kingdom he is exiled to. It’s a tale of the people he encounters along the way and the challenges – death, imprisonment, prejudice and bureaucracy – that threaten the sandcastle home he has built to survive. 

And, of course, his quest to escape. Back to the real world. 

This is the story of our leading man, our star of the stage, John “Divine G” Whitfield, played by Colman Domingo. His performance is so human, it is both difficult to watch and holds you in thrall. His face is so expressive that he hardly needs lines. Yet with their heady blend of silence, naturalism, and poetic speech, his presence becomes magnetic.    

It’s a performance challenged only by Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin and perhaps by Kwedar’s direction which gives exceptional visual variety through masterful framing that makes every shot exciting even in a single setting. 

Like our cast, the camera seeks beauty as an antidote to suffering in the most unlikely of places and perhaps, where we need it most. With this approach and an evocative musical score by Bryce Dessner, the prison takes on a jaded beauty. A character in its own right—full of depth and suffering.

Sing Sing is a film about the roles we play and the masks we don. It’s a story about love and redemption – about the things we say to ourselves and each other to survive. And a strong argument – if any needed making – that no-one, not even prisoners, should be denied the essential dignities of the human condition.  

At just over 100 minutes, this film is propelled by every scene. Each moment lingers but never overstays. If you need bangs and smoke with your drama, its subtle storytelling might not engage you. 

However, if you appreciate thoughtful, character-driven cinema, deeply felt, with a light touch, do yourself a favour – see this film.

Sing Sing is screening exclusively at Cinema Nova in Melbourne. For session times, check their website.

Ruby Lowenstein is a writer, critic, and producer with a BA (Hons) in Cinema and an MA in Arts and Cultural Management from the University of Melbourne. Since 2017, she has worked in the arts and media sector, driven by her passion for cinema, art, and literature. •