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Sing Sing: An Important Film That Everyone Should See

I saw Sing Sing over the weekend, and it blew me away. This film was a masterclass in acting and directing. It was thematically powerful, had a definite point of view, and drove home emotionally charged components. It had important messages about incarceration and the ideas of rehabilitation vs. punishment.

Let’s talk about the story first.

This wasn’t a traditionally told story. The screenplay was based on the book The Sing Sing Follies by Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, about his time in Sing Sing Prison when he participated in a theater group. The screenplay had several contributors, and this was not a traditionally told story. If you’re looking for a traditional 3-act structure, you won’t find it in this movie. And while there is a Hero’s Journey that can be followed, that isn’t really what this movie is about. This movie is about a few direct, emotional moments, and the narrative serves to get us to those moments. This is a subtle movie in many ways, not least in the storytelling. There is a lot of subtext in this very layered narrative that the audience might not consciously be aware of, but they will be able to feel as the story moves along.

Usually, I am not a fan of this type of storytelling. I prefer screenplays that have a tight structure that builds drama throughout the story. However, the screenwriters managed to massage this story in a way that made it dramatic and emotional. Much of that had to do with the characters’ circumstances, and this is very much a character-driven movie. With that in mind, the screenwriters masterfully gave the characters outstanding character arcs that allowed the audience to engage with them on an emotional level, which made up for the lack of conflict and drama in the storyline. This is a very emotional film.

About the acting

In a word, the acting in Sing Sing is superb. Many of the actors were formerly incarcerated and went through this program at Sing Sing prison, so there was a feeling of sincerity and realism in the acting that wouldn’t have been there if regular cinematic actors who had never set foot inside a prison had gotten those roles.

In particular, Coleman Domingo, who already showed out quite well last year in Rustin, gives another masterclass in acting in this film. As with the storytelling, subtlety is the name of the game here. Domingo, playing John “Divine G” Witfield, who is serving time for a crime he didn’t commit, is a man who finds hope in the theater group, but that hope is tested by the everyday reminders that he is not free and that freedom is a long way off.

That feeling is captured in three scenes. The first scene in which he visits a room high in the prison with an open window. He stretches his hand outside as far as his arm can reach to feel the free air he can’t feel on the inside. The next is a moment at the end of his clemency hearing that ends abruptly, telling him that the judgment will likely not be in his favor. He lingers for a moment and stutters out as politely a thank you as he can muster, hoping that last act of kindness will tilt the scale in his favor. The last is when he receives a thick envelope telling him his plea has been rejected. He stands there looking at the envelope for a long time, almost hoping that looking at it long enough will change what it says. Those three moments are gut-wrenching and emotional, demonstrating strong storytelling that is carried by phenomenal acting.

Oscar Season Came Early This Year

This is likely the first of this year’s true Oscar contenders. Will it win anything? Will it even be nominated for anything? Only time will tell. We still have a lot of great films to watch. But the bar for acting has been set, and it has been set high.

Go see this movie in a theater if you get a chance. It isn’t glittering with production design or visual effects, but it deserves your attention. It has a point of view, and you need to focus on it completely to experience its full impact.

My Number 6 Favorite Screenplay of the Year: Challengers

Now that we’re halfway through the year, I thought this would be a good time to acknowledge the best of what we’ve seen so far. Traditionally, the first half of the year can be kind of a wasteland when it comes to good movies. We generally see Oscar-bait movies get their wide release after the limited releases of December made them Oscar-eligible. February and March generally bring out a cavalcade of forgettable movies that are worthy of being neither Oscar-bait nor summer blockbusters. Kids are in school, the weather across the country is terrible, and most people would rather stay home and watch TV or do something streaming. We sometimes get a gem in April to whet our appetites for the blockbuster season that is just around the corner and is finally delivered in May and June.

This year, April brought us Challengers, a movie with a budding superstar in Zendaya and two up-and-comers in Mike Faist and Josh O’Connor. My daughter and I recorded a podcast on it when it came out that can be found here.

What you might find interesting in listening to that podcast is that it might sound like I really didn’t like it. I fully recognize that I am not the target audience for Challengers, but I can also appreciate what they did with the screenplay, even if I wasn’t a fan of the overall film.

This was an unconventional script and an unconventional film.

While I was not a huge fan of the movie, I really liked what screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes did in crafting the story. The movie is about tennis players in a love triangle, and Kurtzkes structured the story in much the same way as the back-and-forth of a tennis match. Anyone who follows tennis knows that when two evenly matched players face off against each other, the momentum of the match can go back and forth. Kurtzkes’ screenplay matches that flow very well over the course of the script.

This was an interesting one for me. After walking out of the theater, my initial reaction was that I didn’t like it. Then, after reflecting on it for a while and discussing it with my daughter on our podcast, I saw more value in the screenplay than I previously had. Kurtzkes and director Luca Guadagnino were not spoon-feeding us the story. They required us to watch and to pay attention to interpret it in our own minds. It was a smartly written screenplay that required active viewing from the audience. You had to pay attention to what was going on to appreciate the symbolism of what Kurtzkes and Guadagnino were doing. If you missed the symbolism, the screenplay would be diminished. If you got the symbolism, the screenplay’s greatness would be revealed.

From a nuts-and-bolts standpoint, the script did what it needed to do. It dripped with conflict, it created a dramatic third act, and it challenged the characters to learn and grow. Some of the characters learned and grew more completely than others, which is what needed to happen. Kurtzkes wasn’t afraid to put his characters in uncomfortable and even painful situations, and the movie was better for it.

Now, this still isn’t my favorite movie of the year, and that’s fine. I’m not the target audience, and people who I’ve spoken with who are in the target audience all loved it. Ultimately, the screenplay did what it needed to do. It just did it in a very unconventional way.

Six! My Six favorite screenplays of the year so far!

We are essentially halfway through the year. In no particular order, my top 5 favorite screenplays of the year are:

Inside Out 2

Dune Part 2

Wicked Little Letters

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The Fall Guy

Challengers

Over the next few days, I will discuss each of these screenplays in detail. I will examine what the screenwriters did right, what they could have improved on, and why the screenplays were integral to the film’s success.

Inside Out 2: PIXAR Picks Up the Slack

I will admit that when I first heard that Inside Out 2 was on the slate, I was underwhelmed. While I liked the first movie, I never considered it to be one of PIXAR’s best efforts. Maybe it was a top-15 or even top-12 PIXAR film, but it wasn’t in my personal top-10, and I personally didn’t feel like it warranted a sequel. I thought it was a solid B, maybe B+ movie, but not quite at the upper echelons of PIXAR’s best films. I was also nervous because the only thing consistent about PIXAR’s movies over the last decade and a half has been their inconsistency. For every Soul, there was a Good Dinosaur. For every Coco, there was a Lightyear. And considering PIXAR’s track record for sequels outside of the Toy Story franchise, I anticipated another letdown.

As is often the case, I was wrong.

Inside Out 2 is a fantastic film and one of their best sequels. While lacking the overpowering emotion of its predecessor, it nevertheless delivers a thematically compelling story about having to accept all facets of who we are, the bitter and the sweet.

Picking up after the original, we see Riley and her best friends getting a special invitation to a prestigious hockey camp that could set them up well for high school. But Riley finds out on the way that her friends will be going to a different high school. Add to that that she’s just entering puberty, and we’re introduced to a new cast of emotions, Anxiety, Boredom, Embarrassment, and Envy, to go along with our familiar friends, Joy, Sadness, Fear, Anger, and Disgust.

Joy has been forcing bad memories to the back of the mind to create a sense of self for Riley that is overwhelmingly positive and altruistic. Feeling the old emotions are outdated and not up to the task of seeing Riley through this tumultuous time, Anxiety and the other new emotions banish Joy and the others so that they can create a new, more nuanced sense of self for Riley that Joy obviously feels is not who Riley really is.

To be honest, I thought the movie was fine through the middle of the second act. I wasn’t blown away, but I was enjoying it. Then the third act rolled around, and I think it needs to be said that no one, and I mean NO ONE, sticks the landing like PIXAR. When they’re on their game, the endings of their films are spot on. Many times, their outstanding endings have saved mediocre films. Nothing about Inside Out 2 is mediocre, but the ending absolutely took it to another emotional level.

What I liked about this film was that PIXAR’s filmmakers were able to keep the world we were familiar with and create new scenarios organically. Of course, a girl hitting puberty and getting ready for high school would have more complex emotions than she did before. It makes sense that these new emotions would turn the world inside Riley asunder until everyone could understand their place and their role. Inside Out 2 isn’t just a blatant money grab for new merch like Cars 2 and Cars 3. It isn’t a square peg being forced into a round hole trying to expand on stories that were totally fine as they were, like Monsters University and Finding Dory. This was an organic continuation of a story we all loved or at least really liked in which the stakes are raised, and new challenges await. You could conceivably see Inside Out 2 without having seen Inside Out and still enjoy it immensely.

It also should be pointed out that Inside 2 may very well salvage the summer movie season.

Inside Out 2 opened last weekend with a whopping $155 million, nearly twice what Dune 2 did in its opening weekend and the highest weekend debut since Barbie last July. To say that this summer has been disappointing at the box office would be a gross understatement. But has often happened, an animated feature has ridden to the rescue. With the latest installment of Despicable Me coming out in July, it’s reasonable to believe that animation could once again save the summer box office season.

My five favorite screenplays of the year so far

We are almost halfway through the year. In no particular order, my top 5 favorite screenplays of the year are:

Dune 2

Wicked Little Letters

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The Fall Guy

Challengers

Over the next few days, I will discuss each of these screenplays in detail. I will examine what the screenwriters did right, what they could have improved on, and why the screenplays were integral to the film’s success.