SING SING (2023)

Like A CHORUS LINE for recidivists, this prison drama puts a group of incarcerated Sing Sing inmates thru the paces of an ‘in-house’ theater company as they hash out personal demons, wait on parole board hearings and go thru Methody acting exercises under the sharp eye of their outside director.  (The much admired cast, from Colman Domingo, Clarence Maclin & Paul Raci, to a host of former program participants, also feeling like over-eager actors exercising for their peers.)  Based on real motivational programs meant to bring in an educational/cultural/socializing alternative to the drudgery of prison life with its dull routine, hopelessness and threatening atmosphere.  (Co-scripter Brent Buell ran just such a project.)   It’s pretty much a can’t miss setup, but the filmmakers (from director Greg Kwedar on down) don’t give us what we need to see for the sort of identification the film asks from us.  Not enough sense of restriction & soul numbing repetition; instead, revelatory fun at rehearsal!  And the play’s no help; a silly time-traveling mash-up of famous literary characters.  (Yes, Hamlet shows up to recite you know what.)  It’s a relief when we cut away from the stage on opening night and miss the actual production.  But the overriding problem may be the sheer likability of the cast members.  A bit like all those prison softies populating THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION; you’d think you were a substitute player filling in at some contract bridge club.*  The film ‘works,’ I guess, but so earnest, hard not to imagine a wicked takeoff with lives changed thru pottery classes or cat grooming.

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  For comparison, see what the Italian Taviani Brothers did with a similar concept in CESARE DEVE MORIRE / CAESAR MUST DIE/'12    https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2016/03/cesare-deve-morire-caesar-must-die-2012.html

ATTENTION MUST BE PAID:  *Talk about loading up on unearned sympathy, when a former player stops by for a catch-up chat and goes on about having to put down his beloved dog, where’s ALL ABOUT EVE’s Thelma Ritter to quip ‘What a story! Everything but the bloodhounds snappin' at her rear end.’