Australian director Charles Williams presents his debut feature: Inside. Williams won the short film Palme d’Or in 2018 at Cannes for All These Creatures and soon became a potential talent for the future. Six years later, the director narrates the story of a young man, Mel (Vincent Miller), who is transferring from the juvenile ward to a conventional jail institution. In this new facility, he shares a cell with Mark (Cosmo Jarvis), the most hated criminal in the country because of his brutal crime of raping and killing a young girl. Now, Mark is trying to redeem himself and looks for salvation by becoming a preacher and organizing religious meetings for the prisoners. The jail administration decides to assign a mentor for Mel to keep him distant from problems, and Warren (Guy Pearce), who is soon to be released, is responsible for teaching the young man how to survive in hell.
The film follows Mel and his psychological journey from being a youth criminal to maintaining his mind on rehabilitation. He has a wife, and she is pregnant. Besides his conscience about his acts and where he is now, Mel has behavioral issues and explodes in therapy sessions or tries to steal wire from fences to escape. The imprisonment changed his state of mind, and he needs to stay away from the gang formations, drug dealing, and other parallel activities in the building. In this sense, Williams approaches the drama of the lead character in a raw manner as a commentary on the criminal institutions used as the state’s punishment venue for crimes. He is not afraid of showing cruelty and violence inside the walls of the prison. Prisoners fight among themselves and commit brutal acts of violence, almost as if they judge each action individually better than the judicial system. In the eyes of the law, Mark is capable of finding change and regret for his brutal crime. However, for the other inmates, it is a morally wrong action that has no pardon.
Consequently, the film contrasts the stories of those three men and how each of them reacts differently to the daily violence and their techniques to survive that oppressive space. Mel is the newest member of the cohort and is highly reactive to the environment and its dangers. Warren is an older participant in that community and teaches him how to escape the attention of those in control. Mel reminds Warren of his son, and their relationship operates similarly. However, the screenplay lacks enough development to create a deeper bond between those characters. Besides good performances by Miller and Pearce, it is never a convincing enough relationship. Yet, the weakest link in this trio is Cosmo Jarvis and his overly caricatural accent. His portrayal of a mentally disabled man is a heavily stigmatized speech, and the bleak look in his eyes. Hence, it is a distraction when he is on screen because of the outlier performance by the recently Emmy-nominated actor. The director uses Mark as the dramatic climax of the film, and the conclusion is a disappointing end to a story that barely expands his potential for moral discussion. Mark is a monster, but he never has enough depth for us to comprehend him as such. He is a mere narrative tool to facilitate the arcs of Mel and Warren.
Visually, the film may be as confined as its characters. There are tons of cold colors, such as blue and white, in an art direction that resonates with the emotional state of the inmates. Thus, it is an economic approach to the storytelling because the project is limited to a single scenario. Additionally, the cinematography by Andrew Commis evokes symbolism in specific moments, exciting the audience with the possibility of visual vigor. Nonetheless, the preaching scenes are in a small room in the jail and provide some fascinating graphical metaphors and constructions. Such as the religious aspect of fire as a purifying element capable of turning a body into a sacred entity, or the behavior of Mark as a new man when he takes the stand. It is an engaging effort by the cinematography team to state more, even without any words.
Ultimately, the first effort by Charles Williams in the direction of a full-length feature on Inside is as confined as its main characters. The geographical space interferes with the scope of this story, the confinement of the jail also confines the story, which is dependent on the development of the script but it lacks profundity in the construction of those flawed men. It has some fascinating symbolism between prison and religion, but it is as shallow as its message of jail as a rehabilitation center for morality.
Inside recently played at the Tribeca Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the Tribeca site for the title.
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