Slow-building in its tension, brutal in its emotional power and devastating in its discussion on the cycle of offending, the impact of violence, and the layers of justice and rehabilitation that shape our prison system, Charles Williams’ ‘Inside’ is a haunting drama, its complex themes as intricate as a mechanical timepiece counting down the hours to freedom.
Does prison work? It’s an age-old debate that generates a high level of emotion, making it challenging to reach objective conclusions due to our differing personal beliefs on what constitutes justice. For some, depending on the crime, prison isn’t enough, and the penalty of death should be the norm. For others, prison should be uncomfortable and unforgiving, a punishment with no end. While others believe prison should be based on reform, education, and rehabilitation. Our views are often dependent on the crime an individual commits, yet everyone, no matter the crime, goes through the same system and frequently ends up in the same prison, whether they murdered someone, broke into multiple houses or dealt drugs on our streets. Prisons create communities of criminals who form their own rules, identities, and hierarchies that are impossible to escape, both inside and outside the prison gates.
Eighteen-year-old Mel (Vincent Miller) has just been transferred from the juvenile to the adult prison estate, where parole is now within reach. Yet, for Mel, who has been incarcerated since he was a boy for killing another boy in a fight, parole feels uncomfortable, uncertain and ultimately alien. When asked to write to his victim as part of the process, he bluntly responds, “Why, he is dead!” before penning a letter that states, “We shouldn’t be let out; even as kids, it’s like we’re infested with something that grows from inside, and hurts everyone around us.” Mel believes he is toxic, a parasite that should be contained, his hope for something better placed behind a locked and impenetrable door long ago, when he was just a boy.
From this moment, writer-director Charles Williams’ drama clearly announces its intention to forgo the classic redemptive arc of so many prison movies, replacing it with something far more obscure, knotty, tough and real, an exploration of the revolving door of offending, the waves of trauma it generates inside and outside of the prison walls and the complex nature of rehabilitation and justice both inside and outside of a cell.
As Mel (Miller) settles into the adult prison, he finds himself partnered in a cell with Mark Shepard (Cosmo Jarvis), a man who raped and murdered a young girl when he was just thirteen but now praises the lord, believing himself to have been freed from his sins as he preaches to other prisoners in his role as an evangelical chapel leader. Initially, Mel is unaware of Mark’s crime, but he is immediately unnerved by his twitchy demeanour and passionate evangelical belief in salvation. Mark is also unsure about Mel, his haunted expression reflecting the years spent in juvenile detention, his innocent face hiding a battle that rages inside him regarding his worth and possible freedom. But when he learns Mel plays the keyboard, he quickly recruits him to play at his sermons, where fellow prisoners jeer and taunt his messages of possible salvation as he speaks in tongues to an invisible lord.
Meanwhile, a few cells away, Warren (Guy Pearce) is nearing his release after spending decades behind bars for a hit-and-run, his past drug abuse and alcoholism still gnawing at him. His only hope is that he will soon be reunited with the son he let down so many years before, a son frozen in time in ragged photos he keeps pinned to his wall. Warren knows how to navigate the prison system and the parole board, but the outside world, while full of hope, comes with risks, and money could help alleviate them. So when Warren finds himself assigned to Mel as a mentor, the opportunity to enrol Mel on a plot to kill Mark Shepard and take the prison bounty on the child killer’s head is impossible to turn down. But despite his brutal coldness, born from decades on the inside, can Warren really use Mel to kill Shepard?
Slow-building in its tension, brutal in its emotional power and devastating in its discussion on the cycle of offending, the impact of violence, and the layers of justice and rehabilitation that shape our prison system, Williams’ Inside is a haunting drama, its complex themes as intricate as a mechanical timepiece counting down the hours to freedom. Add to this the understated yet truly unforgettable performances of Jarvis, Pearce and Miller, and Inside becomes a dramatic powerhouse that regularly leaves you gasping for air.
As decisions are made, and the future of a young boy sits in the hands of an older man who must soon face the realities of the world he left behind so many years before, Inside offers no easy answers to the questions of prison as a vehicle for punishment or the revolving doors of offending versus rehabilitation. Instead, in a truly outstanding feature debut, Williams asks one pertinent question: How does violence and dysfunction shape the individual, and how does that individual then shape the behaviours and opportunities of those around them?
Charles Williams’ Australian prison drama is based on over four years of development, and his dedication to research within Australia’s prison estate is evident in every frame. The result is an exceptional and complex feature debut full of fury, tension and unbridled dramatic power.
Inside had its North American premiere at Tribeca Festival, and is awaiting a UK release date.
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