SING SING (15) 107mins ★★★☆☆ IT’S a rare thing these days to sit down to watch a film that feels very different from anything you have seen before. And this charming tale, inspired by the Rehabilitation Through The Arts project in New York State’s Sing Sing maximum security prison , is just that. Performed largely by genuine inmates playing themselves, it has energy, humour, sadness and optimism.
Yet it also has its faults, which feels cruel to write as it all feels so well intentioned. The film focuses on John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo), who drives the theatre programme. READ MORE FILM REVIEWS He is a clever, articulate playwright who also acts as a mentor and confidant to his fellow inmates.
He’s a visionary who seems to have relentless positivity — and the real John Whitfield has a cameo. A newcomer to the group, Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin — also played, very impressively, by himself — who finds the acting class a bit excruciating and instinctively rebels against it. But John spots something in him; a Hamlet waiting to get out.
Most read in Film So he tries to gently encourage him away from threatening other inmates, to believing in the healing powers of performance. Meanwhile, he is going through his own private agony as his parole is, once again, denied and a close pal of his dies. It’s a sterling performance by all involved, including the group’s director, Brent Buell (Paul Raci) who seems utterly believable as a passiona.