Sing Sing (#591)


The movie I saw this weekend was one for which I had seen no previews and was unaware of its existence.  Seen away from home with a friend it was an unexpected pleasure.  Of course I had heard of Sing Sing, the well-known prison in Ossining, New York, up-county from where I lived  earlier in my life.  The movie SING SING was more like a documentary than a movie snd featured professional actors as well as actual inmates of the institution.  It is a well-told, well-acted and produced story of a program at Sing Sing, in which the convicts act in plays mostly written by them. It follows a group rehearsing a play which  embraces a variety of historical events (ancient Egypt, for example), and which also includes, bizarre as it might sound, Hamlet's soliloquy.  It is essentially a program of rehabilitation, and each character reacts in a different way.  It feels legitimate and is filmed almost entirely at the prison with no attempt to make it more or less than that.  Having visited a prison as part of a college course I took, Sing Sing was a far different facility than the one I saw, where cells looked like the ones I remember from all the prison movies.  Sing Sing's cells appeared to be very small rooms with things like desks and other furniture and windows.  Check if it's streaming if it's not in a theater near you.  98% of critics and 83% of audiences agreed with my assessment. 

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