The show must go on for maximum security prisoners participating in a rehabilitative theatre troupe in Greg Kwedar’s tenderly humane and moving real-life drama Sing Sing (A). Colman Domingo marvelously anchors the story as a long-time inmate on the verge of a clemency hearing who has become the central journeyman performer in an acting class coached by a character wonderfully played by Paul Raci. Sean San José is also splendid as one of the central prisoners, and many such as Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin brilliantly play their true-life selves. Kwedar has a real eye for the humanity of the characters without ever overly sliding into sentiment, and there are funny touches in the original work the men rehearse and present (their populist work includes characters ranging from Hamlet to Freddy Krueger). Bryce Dessner’s cerebral music offers a wistful, delicate accompaniment to the story. Domingo steals the show with a feast of a performance, and the whole ensemble shines with poignancy and panache. It’s a remarkable tale encouraging viewers to rethink perspectives and engage differently with men who may not have otherwise gotten their second act of redemption. It’s a fantastic entry on the 2024 film festival circuit certainly en route to Oscar glory.
Director Greg Kwedar describes the film to Silver Screen Capture on the red carpet of closing night at the Atlanta Film Festival 2024:
Four decades after Bandit’s criss-crossing car chases left Smokey in the dust of Georgia, Edgar Wright’s Atlanta-set Baby Driver (A) grafts grifts and getaways, criminally comic chase capers and manic musical syncopations that yield new song to this southern boomtown into a wholly original new entertainment. This candy-colored fantasia is an engrossing and involving tale from the get-go, propelled by a very charming Ansel Elgort in the central role as a go-to guy for driving armed robbers from scenes of the crime and plucky Lily James as the waitress who wins his heart and may just pull him away from his life in the shadows. Add to these great performances scenery chewing Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx and Jon Hamm, and it’s off to the races. Wright has drawn his characters finely with clever quirks that pay off perfectly in episodes behind the crimes and behind the wheel. Because Elgort’s character has “a hum in the drum” and relies on an iTunes shuffle for the soundtrack to his days (including sweet, swift exit music), the film is laced with an electric and eclectic jukebox of joy ranging from Blur to The Beach Boys to the Incredible Bongo Band. The movie is faster, more furious and funnier than most anything in the marketplace right now because it sweats the details, cares for its characters, goes out on a limb for adventure and doesn’t mind crossing lanes between genres. It’s an ultracool summons into trippy territory. It’s the mix-tape and mash-up of summer that you didn’t know you were looking for, and it’s ready for a fresh spin.
For a film ostensibly about the pulsating best of electronic dance music, Max Joseph’s We Are Your Friends (D) is listless and low energy, and even the music is only good on occasion. A vehicle for Zac Efron to flex his musical muscles in the central role as an up-and-coming DJ in San Fernando Valley, the film famously flopped in its theatrical release, appearing on the surface to be like a pretentious nightclub that people avoid in droves. The movie’s characters talk in unfulfilled platitudes about achieving the dream; now available for a second chance at life on the home viewing front, it’s still not worth the stream. Caught up in a love triangle with a promoter/mentor phoned in by Wes Bentley and mutual love interest played by the beautiful but vacant Emily Ratajkowski, Efron channels Cocktail-era Tom Cruise, except with considerably less charm, coasting along in a formulaic plot that does none of its ensemble any favors and sometimes just feels like an overlong Sprite or Abercrombie & Fitch commercial. The golden god even suffers for his art, with the eyebrow scar and all. The film peaks early with a promising rotoscope animated PCP hallucination. Perhaps it needed to stay on something because it’s never onto something.
Let the impeccable period detail, stirring folk music and dark comic details of Joel and Ethan Coen’s Inside Llewin Davis (B) wash over you, and you’re in for a film you can’t take your eyes or ears off. Newcomer Oscar Isaac is the standout performer as the titular vagrant ruffian whose sins in life are scrubbed clean each time he belts out cherubic tunes. The supporting cast doesn’t fare quite as well (not an awesome year for Carey Mulligan), except a hilarious John Goodman as a larger-than-life drifter and Justin Timberlake in a great studio sequence. Many standout musicals are set as history is about to blow a different wind (Cabaret and Hair come to mind), and the Coen Brothers’ fairly inert plotting at the dawn of a folk revolution seems to miss an opportunity or two for dramatic tension. But I think they’re really saying that soul-altering art can come from the unlikeliest of authors who may be footnotes at best in the record books. Like the cat that keeps getting loose in the film, a true artist remains untamed and elusive. Something tells me time will be kind to this curiosity.
John Carney’s Once (B+) is a treasure box of a musical with an unassuming storyline showcasing a man and a woman who enter each other’s lives when they need each other most. Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglova play the unnamed pair – he, a busking Irish guitarist and she, a Czech pianist, who find themselves “Falling Slowly” into the spell of making beautiful music together. Very much in the vein of Before Sunrise, the duo are fated to be together and bring out talents and insights in each other that they never could have found separately. In its simplicity and handheld look and feel, it celebrates the joy of discovery and the brilliant promises of second chances at love.
Tom Hanks’ directorial debut, That Thing You Do! (B+) is a light, fizzy film about the meteoric rise of a one-hit wonder band to the height of fame and fortune. Hanks as manager and the bright young cast he has assembled are a delight to watch as their characters sort out relationships once the band gets big. Filled with great music and period detail, this is a rich sleeper comedy.