‘Sing Sing,’ ‘Thelma,’ and the Beauty of ‘Not What We Were’

Two of my favorite films this summer don’t seem to share much in common, at least on the surface. Thelma (released in June, now available to rent) is about a 93-year-old grandmother (June Squibb) who falls prey to a scam and loses $10,000. Sing Sing (out today in select theaters) is about a group of inmates at New York’s Sing Sing prison who perform theatrical stage plays as part of a program called Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA).

Thelma (rated PG-13 for language) is a comedy with a few serious moments. Sing Sing (rated R for language) is an often heavy drama with a few comedic moments. Their genres, styles, and content in many ways couldn’t be more different.

But I loved these films for the same reason. Both push back against the constraints of victimhood culture and challenge the low expectations we place on ourselves—and the ones others place on us. Both, albeit in different ways and vastly different contexts, present inspiring visions of agency and growth: We can do more than we think we can, we’re resilient, and by grace we can overcome even great challenges.

Freedom in Prison

Directed by Greg Kwedar, Sing Sing is a beautiful drama about prisoners who find freedom, dignity, and hope through artistic collaboration. The film stars only a couple of professional actors: Colman Domingo and Paul Raci, both Oscar nominees. The rest of the cast are formerly incarcerated alumni of Sing Sing’s RTA program, playing versions of themselves.

The story focuses on the real-life friendship between RTA alumni John “Divine G” Whitfield (Domingo) and Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, who plays a version of himself. Among other things, the movie offers a stirring depiction of friendship between men—a subject too rarely explored in contemporary movies.

The film also shows how change is possible and how community, friendship, and embarking on challenging collaborative projects can fuel growth. Divine Eye’s arc is especially powerful—he starts in a state of defensive violence and fear and moves to a place of generous love and hope. He begins the film disempowered and cynical, with little hope for his redemption. But through the love of the RTA community (and especially Divine G), he ends the film with confidence he can change and have a future.

It’s hard to watch Sing Sing and not feel moved by the beauty of seeing someone grow before our eyes. At a time when so many Hollywood dramas fixate on how characters devolve (e.g., Breaking Bad) and spiral deeper and deeper into sin (e.g., Ripley), Sing Sing presents a compelling picture of the opposite evolution.

Agency for the Old (and Young)

Written and directed by Josh Margolin, Thelma is ostensibly a drama about aging. But while Thelma’s centerpiece is veteran actor June Squibb (starring in her first lead role at age 94), the film also explores Thelma’s grandson Danny (Fred Hechinger) in a parallel way.

The film opens with the two of them together—Danny helping his grandma figure something out on her computer. But soon we see their bond goes beyond grandson and grandmother. They both feel overprotected by Gail (Parker Posey) and Alan (Clark Gregg)—Thelma’s daughter and son-in-law, who are Danny’s parents. Gail and Alan demand Thelma wears a “lifeline” tracking device and doesn’t leave the house without help. And Danny is a stereotypical case of a “failure to launch” Gen Zer who, having been smothered by safetyism, lacks trust in his abilities (“I can’t do anything,” he says a few times in the film).

At various points in the movie, I thought about Jonathan Haidt’s thesis statement in The Anxious Generation: “We have overprotected children in the real world and underprotected them in the virtual world.” Except in Thelma it applies as much to our aging parents as to our underage kids.

As Thelma goes on, both Thelma and Danny come to realize they have more fortitude and grit than they thought. They recognize that disempowerment can be a self-reinforcing cycle (“You start acting like a baby, people treat you like a baby,” Thelma says), and when this happens to them, they’re not powerless. Importantly, though, they’re emboldened by each other, not in isolation. As in Sing Sing, where the characters encourage and strengthen one another through friendship and collaborative creativity, so in Thelma we see how community is essential for building confidence and taking healthy risks. At one point in Thelma, the camera pauses on a nursing home poster that says, “Asking for help is a sign of strength.”

The film reinforces this message in the various characters who aid Thelma in regaining her stolen money—chiefly Danny but also her elderly friend Ben (Richard Roundtree). But these helpers don’t do the job for Thelma. They do it with her. Their presence emboldens but doesn’t replace her agency.

We see how community is essential for building confidence and taking healthy risks.

In Thelma, we see the effect of edifying words being spoken over us. Danny’s girlfriend tells him at one point, “If you ever want to take that leap, for what it’s worth, I think you could make it.” And Thelma’s final words to him in the film include this: “I’m not gonna worry about you. You’re gonna be OK, Danny.”

You can make it. You’re going to be OK. How simple these words are, but how powerful when they’re spoken to us by loved ones. Our agency doesn’t just bubble up from within. We need affirming words, encouragement, and votes of confidence from others, in part to counteract the barrage of discouraging and harsh words we often receive. We shouldn’t forget the power of this. For loved ones in your life who feel powerless or stuck, don’t neglect the ministry of encouragement.

Art Can Empower, Inspire Hope

Thelma begins and ends with an unlikely inspiration: Tom Cruise. At the beginning of the film, as Thelma watches one of the recent Mission: Impossible films, she marvels at the fact that at 62, Cruise still does his own stunts. Throughout the film, she sort of mimics the Mission: Impossible franchise as she sets off on her own impossible, dangerous mission to recover her stolen money (this motif is utterly delightful). And in the final shot, Thelma kills a bug in her apartment with a newspaper, grinning with a sense of “I can do this” empowerment. As the newspaper unfolds, we see Cruise’s face on the front page. The point is clear. The narratives we see in art spark our imagination for what’s possible in our own lives.

The narratives we see in art spark our imagination for what’s possible in our own lives.

Similarly, in Sing Sing, the theater program becomes for the inmates a source of profound courage and imagination. As they perform Shakespearean soliloquies (Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” looms large), engage in improv exercises, and even write their own plays, the men catch a vision not only for a bigger world but for an enlarged and empowered self. They defy their own expectations of what’s possible and—through the beauty of imagination—grow in empathy, hope, and humanity.

By inspiring audiences and each other as a tight-knit theater troupe, the men begin to envision healthier futures for themselves, perhaps for the first time. It’s a beautiful thing to watch, and it’s a reminder that beauty and art are powerful means of helping our loved ones break out of hopeless ruts and catch a vision for another reality.

Not What We Were

At one point in Thelma, Ben says, “We’re old. Diminished. A liability to the ones we love.” Later in the scene, he says, “We’re not what we were.” On one hand, it’s a refreshing dose of realism—a healthy reminder that there comes a point when denial about our physical and mental limitations can cause real harm to others. But “We’re not what we were” can also be an empowering realization, because it implies the possibility of change.

“Not what we were” can invoke feelings of regret and nostalgia for our glory days, or it can encourage us that each life season can be a fresh chapter, with new plotlines and characters. Indeed, character change is the central plank of all drama. If we’re forever stuck in what we “were” and never able to become what we “might be,” our lives would be stationary and boring.

Character change is the central plank of all drama.

It’s no accident that Shakespeare figures prominently in Sing Sing. The Bard often explored parallels between life and the theatrical arts, recognizing that fundamental to being human is the ability to not just “be” or “not be” but to become. As long as we have breath in our lungs, our ability to become is always within our grasp. As Shakespeare famously put it in As You Like It,

All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts.

Sing Sing and Thelma demonstrate the resilience, creativity, and growth humans were created by God to experience. In a cultural moment of “born this way” rigidity and disempowered fragility, Christians can celebrate films that bear witness to God’s majestic creational design (Ps. 8:5) and our “new creation” hope in Christ’s resurrection (Rom. 8; 1 Cor. 6:11; 2 Cor. 5:17). By God’s grace, we’re never bound by what we were yesterday or who we are today; we’re freed to become everything we were meant to be.