Sing Sing review – Colman Domingo is magnetic in moving real-life US prison drama

Colman Domingo is at the peak of his considerable powers in Greg Kwedar’s inspirational, fact-based prison drama Sing Sing. The actor, who was Oscar-nominated last year for his lead performance in Rustin, and who has given eye-catching supporting turns in If Beale Street Could Talk, The Color Purple, Zola and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, to barely scratch the surface, has an effortless magnetism that draws the eye and makes him the focus of every frame. The kind of performer who doesn’t need to say a word to speak volumes, he is, without doubt, one of the finest actors currently working. All of which makes his casting in this small-scale, intimate, ripped-from-reality tale an unexpectedly risky decision.
Domingo, who plays real-life prisoner (now released) John Whitfield, aka Divine G, is surrounded by a cast largely made up of non-professional former convicts playing characters based on themselves. The presence of an Academy Award nominee of Domingo’s calibre could very easily have tipped the whole project off balance. And while it’s true that there are moments when it feels as though he and the rest of the cast are acting in two different films, it’s a testament to Domingo’s generosity as a performer that this happens only rarely. Equally, it’s a testament to the talent and raw authenticity of his co-stars that we are as invested in their stories as we are in that of Divine G.
Sing Sing was inspired by an Esquire magazine article from 2005 about the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) programme, which originated in Sing Sing prison in New York state, and a prison theatre production of a time-travelling musical comedy titled Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code. As such, this is by no means a conventional prison movie. Kwedar, who had directed one previous feature, Transpecos, in 2016, is more interested in finding the softness and sensitivity in these hardened convicts than he is in the concrete and razor-wire cliches of the genre.
It’s a film about the transformative, therapeutic power of art; about men learning to bare their souls and harness their vulnerabilities. In this respect, it calls to mind the powerful 2017 documentary The Work, about group therapy sessions in California’s Folsom prison. It is, in many ways, a bromance, dealing with the friendship that builds between Divine G – elder statesman and theatre project driving force – and newcomer to acting Clarence Maclin, aka Divine Eye (playing himself), one of the most feared inmates on the block. It’s worth mentioning that both Maclin and the real-life John Whitfield have writing credits on this project.
It’s not just the thematic element that defies the expectations of the prison movie genre. Take the score, composed by Bryce Dessner (C’mon C’mon, Bardo). Rather than the muscular hip-hop infused posturing we might expect, the music is fluid and melodic – as gentle (and, it’s fair to say, as sentimental) as a caress. It seems almost incongruous at first, until you realise that what we are watching – huge, intimidating men throwing themselves into goofy acting exercises – is, in many ways, incongruous. The only time the harmony disappears and discord creeps into the music is after one character’s unexpected death. But even the manner of the death is not quite what we would assume, given the number of convicted murderers on screen at any given time.
Then there’s the camerawork. Director of photography Pat Scola (A Quiet Place: Day One) shoots on film, which gives texture and depth to prison interiors. The camera tends not to focus on the walls themselves, either looking beyond – to the sky and the glistening Hudson River – or getting up close and personal with the men. Kwedar has talked in interviews about realising that the key to the picture was capturing “the landscape of the human face”: it’s dramatically rich terrain.
And what faces they are. The prisoners are mostly played by alumni of the RTA programme; the faces they show to the camera are marked by life, bearing scars and tattoos, each telling its own story. Of these, Maclin is perhaps the most fascinating. His is a fortress rather than a face when we first meet him. He has trained himself to show nothing beyond anger and aggression. But gradually, as he learns to trust the other men, and in particular Whitfield, he lets us see the parts of his character that he had previously written off as weakness: the pain, the joy, the loyalty and the capacity for love. It’s powerful and profoundly moving stuff.