By George & Josh Bate
Guy Pearce follows his Oscar-nominated performance in The Brutalist with Inside, a prison drama and slow-burn exercise in empathy screening at Tribeca Festival this year. The film follows Mel (Vincent Miller), a 17-year-old incarcerated in an Australian prison. Mel finds himself bunking with Mark Shepard (Cosmo Jarvis), a seemingly reformed child murderer who has embraced religion and philosophy. Also in the prison is Warren Murfett (Guy Pearce), a long-incarcerated prisoner who takes on the tasks of mentoring Mel and soon ropes into a plot to kill Mark Shepard.
Far from the first prison drama, Inside doesn’t break new ground with its setting or plot structure. Where writer/director Charles Williams’ excels is through the considerate cultivation of two profoundly interesting characters whose journeys pose questions to viewers about their moral compass. Williams doesn’t shy away from the questionable characters of the prisoners, nor does he indulge in a heightened, overly dramatized depiction of life while incarcerated. Instead, the Australian filmmaker, who previously won the Short Film Palme d’Or for his short film All These Creatures, keeps the story grounded and unforgiving. Reportedly, Williams spent four years visiting and interviewing inmates and officers in Australian prisons and even went so far as to have 11% of the cast be indigenous (a number that matches with the 10.8% of Indigenous people incarcerated in Victoria, Australia).
Williams employs carefully calculated pacing that some may misinterpret as being initially dull. Mirroring the way in which the lead characters Mel and Warren have lingered in the prison system for so long, Inside adopts the pacing of incarcerated life – slow and deliberate, until it isn’t.
Eventually, the film ferments from a more conventional prison drama to something more unsettling and gripping. In order to pay off a debt and avoid being killed by members of a prison gang, Guy Pearce’s Warren takes Vincent Miller’s Mel under his belt and begins to guide him to murder Cosmo Jarvis’ Mark Shepard to satisfy his debtors. This makes for a strange dynamic, as the audience sees two characters slowly grow closer in a potentially heartwarming manner all while under the guise of an insidious scheme.
Once the story settles down, Inside makes for compelling and powerful viewing to the very end. Aspects of young Mel’s past are revealed, which invite judgment from the audience and juxtapose the subdued man on screen. Williams is disinterested in creating morally clear-cut characters, instead opting for authentic individuals whose pasts were largely determined by the context in which they occurred. In his very first film credit, Vincent Miller delivers a harrowing performance as Mel. As he isn’t always provided with extensive dialogue to work with, Miller’s performance relies heavily on facial expressions and reactions to events that occur around him. Miller possesses an uncanny ability to capture so much thought and torment with his eyes and facial expression alone. There are a multitude of moments in the film in which the camera simply lingers on Miller’s face as he looks into the distance contemplating things. Without a narration or inner monologue provided to the audience, one is often left to gauge Mel’s emotional standing from the subtleties of Miller’s performance. It is not an exaggeration to say that, without such a quietly effective lead performance, Inside wouldn’t have reached the heights that it does.
Guy Pearce similarly excels as the mentor of Miller’s character. The Oscar-nominated actor’s character has the most interesting arc in the film, which evolves in unexpected ways until it culminates in resounding and powerful fashion. Pearce is simply superb as a man hardened by his life in prison and desperate to reconnect with his adult son, who doesn’t visit him while incarcerated. A testament to both Miller and Pearce, Inside retains a sense of authenticity by never being too loud or overt with its emotions. There isn’t some big scene here that will make an Oscar highlights reel for how showy and in-your-face it is. Rather, the actors bring a groundedness and naturalism to their performances, fitting for the journeys of their characters and essential in making the film’s ending hit so hard.
Without delving into spoilers, Inside concludes with an ending so emotionally affecting that it alone elevates the film from a compelling drama to a masterful depiction of humanity and empathy. Shattering our hearts and then lifting them back up again, the finale elicits a spectrum of emotions and demonstrates how effective the principle ‘less is more’ can be when applied with consideration. Again, like the rest of the film, Williams doesn’t go big or loud with the ending, in part, as means to retain the authentic feeling of the story. But what this also does is make the emotions that subtly creep through hit so hard and have a lasting impact. In the weeks after watching Inside, this ending has stuck with us in ways few conclusions do, while also generating grander thoughts about human kindness, potential, and redemption.
VERDICT: 8/10
Inside may not break new ground as yet another prison drama but manages to escape from the potential pitfalls of conventionality with understated characters and unrivalled authenticity. After overcoming a somewhat slow start, writer/director Charles Williams’ feature debut gains momentum with a plot that sees a long-incarcerated prisoner (Guy Pearce) mentor a 17-year-old prisoner (Vincent Miller) to kill another inmate (Cosmo Jarvis). While the story proves compelling, the infrastructure it provides to the film proves more affecting as it allows for the development of a complex and perplexingly heartfelt relationship. In his very first on-screen credit, Vincent Miller triumphs with a performance that doesn’t rely on dialogue or showy expressions of emotion, but, rather, utilizes every minutia of detail in the human face to elicit emotion and provoke thought. Guy Pearce, meanwhile, is similarly superb in delivering a nuanced performance that also raises questions of viewers’ moral character. All of this culminates in an uncannily powerful ending that elevates the film from compelling drama to masterful depiction of humanity and empathy. Mirroring the preceding film, the ending doesn’t go big or loud with emotions, instead allowing subtle features to convey strong emotions in more subtle and authentic ways. A testament to the film’s lasting impact, we haven’t stopped thinking about the ending of Inside and what it has to say about human kindness, potential, and redemption.