Jency Reviews: Sing Sing

Colman Domingo plays ‘Divine G’ in Sing Sing (2023)

Sing Sing is a beautifully written and shot movie that I recommend all to creatives— and really everyone— to go see. I’ve often thought that my artistic endeavors have kept me going during the dark times of my life and given me an outlet for my pain. Watching the movie Sing Sing was so riveting because it shows how powerful acting class and theater productions can be in the life of prisoners captive at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a prison off the coast of New York. The story follows Colman Domingo playing ‘Divine G’, the leader of the theater group in prison. He’s been wrongly accused and is serving time: 25 years to life for murder. And he works with other prisoners to help them come out of their shell through acting exercises and producing plays, all within the confines of the prison.

While watching them go through the different acting exercises, I could not help but feel privileged to be an acting coach who gets to lead people through similar exercises that help them unlock their emotional life. It allows them to be set free from some of their own personal prisons of fear, self-doubt, anxiety, or shame. There’s a particular scene in the film where Divine G asks prisoners to go to their favorite spot in their mind and do an imaginary exercise using their favorite person in their favorite place. It reminds me of how powerful our imaginations are. Even if we’re locked up through economic oppression, literal prison, or personal reasons, we can still travel in our minds to beautiful places and experience the warm feelings that those places in our imaginations take us. As an actor, the imagination is one our greatest tools. Suspending our disbelief that the reality of the scene is our true reality is our job. It really can be quite fun to pretend to be the Queen of England, or the first female president of the United States.

Why do the arts exist? To help us deal with our own realities in a softer way (without confronting ourselves head on), a way that can bring a closer look at truth in our lives. We feel moved by the characters we are watching because we relate to them. While watching Sing Sing we can relate to characters Divine, Maclin, and Mike Mike as they work through their impossible situations in prison life, feeling as though we also have those impossible situations in our real life that keep us bound. It’s so deep and the fact that this is based on a true story really rocks you because you know they are still doing plays at Sing Sing and overcoming their pain through the arts in real life there. What’s so special about this movie is they used real people from Sing Sing who are either actual current prisoners there or were there and now are on the outside.

True stories told in film are so inspiring, and I respect the filmmakers for coming up with this concept and using real people to give us such a raw and transparent view of the inside of what prison life is like at Sing Sing. Colman Domingo’s performance is absolutely perfect in every way, and he definitely deserves an Oscar. I will definitely will be rooting him on come Oscars 2025.

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