"Sing Sing" Review: An Emphatically Human Film about Hope, Despair, and the Necessity of Expression
Sing Sing tells a remarkably tender story about putting together theater production while holding onto the hope of making it out of a prison system that is reluctant to give any humanity to the people trapped inside of it. // Image: A24
What happens to us when we’re stripped of our humanity? For many of us, such a question is a needless one to ask as it’s something we’re afforded the privilege of not having to ask in our everyday lives. Our humanity goes without saying in our day-to-day lives. The hobbies we enjoy, the family and friends we stand aside, and the memories that we get to make everyday, -that’s what makes our human existences meaningful. And yet, such is ultimately a privilege - something that isn’t afforded to some people. The most glaring example of this is the American prison-industrial complex - more specifically, in how prisoners are treated and often portrayed - people stripped of their humanity and not fully considered as people with hopes, dreams, and ambitions.
The most human thing to do in a situation where you’ve been stripped of your humanity is to do everything that you can to reclaim it. You try to return to doing the things you love, you try to remember what gives you your own identity. Most importantly, you try to hold on to hope that, one day, things could get better. It may require work, it may bring crushing despair, but hope can be the only thing to give you the drive and energy to return to being the person you’ve been denied to be. This very idea is at the core of A24’s Sing Sing, an incredible prison-drama that easily finds itself at the top of A24’s high-quality portfolio of films.
In my return to blog content with my Dìdi review, I wrote about how my desire to return to writing content for this very website hinged on my desire to share about media that profoundly impacted me. Dìdi and Sing Sing were my two most anticipated movies for the year, and in my area, they released on the same weekend, making for a weekend full of emotion and inspiration for me. Both movies left me with giant smiles on my face, though for different reasons. While I praised Dìdi for its brilliant humor and authenticity of its depicted era, Sing Sing’s smiles come from a different source. The film’s smiles are ones of pride for the resilience and strength of its characters, seeing their growth, their struggles, their camaraderie with one another, and, indeed, their humanity. Sing Sing excellently blends charismatic, hopeful characters with a story that highlights just how fragile that hope can be. The result is an incredible story that will stick with any moviegoer long after they leave the theater.
Sing Sing focuses on John “Divine G” Whitfield, who we see has spent much of his life in the Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison (that’s one of the highest security prisons in the United States). Just a few minutes into the film, the audience is immediately convinced of what Divine G tells others around him as prepares for his hearing: he’s an innocent man that’s imprisoned for a crime that he didn’t commit. While many prison-dramas navigate this dynamic of an innocent man imprisoned with characters being angry or pining to escape prison life altogether, Sing Sing takes a subversive, more grounded, and more intelligent approach.
Divine G makes it clear that he believes in “trusting the process” of having his sentence end by pleading innocence and proving that he leads his life with integrity and honor in the form of leading a theater group inside the correctional facility. One thing that the film quickly establishes is that inmates receive one of two letters after their hearings - a thin letter indicating a newfound freedom and a thick letter indicating continued imprisonment.
It’s with this framing in mind that we immediately get to root for Divine G and the men in his theater group. This film pays no mind to what crimes they’ve been imprisoned for, nor judges them and determines whether they’re innocent or not. Rather, Sing Sing is entirely focused on portraying Divine G and the other incarcerated men as people expressing themselves in spite of the oppressive environment that they are trapped in.
In the film’s first act, we see Divine G’s theater group recruit Divine Eye, another inmate that appears to be a polar opposite from Divine G. We’re introduced to him through an attempted drug trade with another inmate, to which Divine Eye gets angry and threatens the other inmate for not having high quality product. Of course, Divine G sees this interaction and sees the authenticity of Divine Eye’s performance of appearing tough in front of the other inmate, to which Divine Eye cheekily confirms that Divine G “hasn’t seen anything yet”.
After Divine Eye joins the theater group, the troupe holds a meeting to determine what their next project is going to be. After exchanging widely different ideas on what play to put on, the group ultimately decides on doing a time-traveling comedy play that’s ultimately a smörgåsbord of different plays in different time periods. As the group rehearses and prepares for their performance throughout the film, we see Divine G help lead the production, which ultimately results in him butting heads with Divine Eye, who often gets frustrated and halts rehearsals to a standstill at times.
Sing Sing is framed around a theater group in the Sing Sing Correctional Facility rehearsing and performing a comedy play. The journey of the inmates expressing themselves and rehearsing this play brings about frustration, disappointment, despair, and hope. // Image: A24
After Divine Eye gets irritated and aggressive after being repeatedly told how to improve his performance and stage presence, a verbal fight breaks out, before ending with another inmate pleading them to stop with a line that profoundly defines Sing Sing’s mission: “We’re here to become human again and enjoy the things that is not in our reality [sic]”.
This single quote is a turning point in Divine Eye’s arc, as his previous behavior of frustration and aggression becomes more collaborative and supportive of the other inmates in the theater group. Indeed, the theater group depicted in Sing Sing are faced with an impossible challenge: to reclaim their humanity and find what brings them joy in spite of being in a desolate, often hopeless living situation. Expression, storytelling, and being part of a community of actors and production coordinators is what helps Divine G and the rest of the inmates find some semblance of hope that things will manage to work out. Whether the final goal is getting the thin letter that’s their key to freedom or merely surviving prison life, the inmates are given something to hope for and are allowed to have something to look forward to.
Of course, the path towards what we hope for is rarely a straightforward or easy one. Throughout this journey, the theater group experiences loss and even an outburst from Divine G when he receives the dreaded thick letter while he sees many other people, some of whom he considers less deserving, receive the much-coveted thin letter. Hope is fragile and can easily morph into rage when the goal posts for what we hope for seem to constantly move farther and farther away. In that sense, Sing Sing expertly depicts that just because you navigate life with hope, integrity, and support for others - that doesn’t necessarily mean the world will treat you back with the grace you’ve given it.
Sing Sing’s story is an authentic one, but what increases its authenticity is its casting. While Colman Domingo gives an incredibly charismatic and heartful leading performance that should easily land him an Oscar nomination, much of Sing Sing’s cast are alumni from the real-life theater group from Sing Sing Correctional Facility whose story this film is based on. In this film’s credits, we even see actual footage of the performances that this theater group put on together. In conjunction with the fact that Sing Sing was filmed onsite in actual decommissioned correctional facilities, Sing Sing’s commitment to authenticity makes the film feel as grounded and believable as can possibly be.
Sing Sing is a cut above any typical feel-good story. It’s a cut above many prison dramas that communicate stories of hope and resilience. Sing Sing stands far above its contemporaries due to its uniquely authentic and intellectual approach to its story, performances, and themes about hope, humanity, and integrity. This film respects those whose story this film is based on while also being a story full of heart and humanity that its depicted inmates share. It is through expression and forging a community built around creating something that these inmates are invigorated with the humanity, hope, and smiles that convince them that their lives are still worth living.
Sing Sing is remarkably human and reminds us to trust in whatever process that will lead us to our own thin letter - come whatever smiles and struggles that will bring.
Final Grade: A+
Thank you so much for reading! What did you think of Sing Sing? How does it compare to other prison-dramas you’ve seen? As always, join the conversation and let me know your thoughts in the comments or on Twitter/X @DerekExMachina.
