INSIDE
FOUR STARS When Mel transfers from Juvenile, he finds himself on course for a life in prison.
DRAMA AUSTRALIA English #INSIDE Starring Vincent Miller, Guy Pearce
Writer-director Charles Williams has crafted a rare gem of a film. It’s also one that presents Australian detention as it very likely is, neither inherently corrupt nor a system that’s likely to rehabilitate. It puts detainees in a holding pattern for the safety of the public where, with a little luck, a few might be released in a better place than when they went in. There are no promises.
With that as a starting point, Williams has crafted a very human story about three such inmates whose lives intersect in unexpected yet very entwined ways. One is Mark Shepard (an electrifying performance from Cosmo Jarvis), a child-rapist who has since found God. His new cellmate is Mel Blight, a soft-faced young man transferred from Juvenile to serve the remainder of his sentence as an adult. Born in prison, locked up as a teenager, he’s terrified of being released.
Then there’s Warren Murfett (a never-better Guy Pearce) who is months away from parole and desperate to reconnect with his son (Toby Wallace). Murfett focuses that Dad-energy onto Mel a little because he sees the lad as a surrogate but also because he has a plan for the boy. Murfett needs cash, and there’s a contract on Shepard. He convinces Mel to act in the misguided hope that murder will ensure him a life sentence.
From under the surface of a prison film, Williams has written a densely layered script that wriggles deep into paternal relationships, whether that’s Murfett and his son, Murfett and Mel, Mel and Shepard or Shepard and his heavenly father. Each of them are in a battle of identity - who the system says they are, who they think they are, who they really are. Mel is caught in the middle of it all with Christian absolution on one side, and worldly survival on the other.
It’s hard to watch but easing us through is the clear-eyed compassion with which Williams directs. He doesn’t loose sight of any characters, even the smallest roles are fully formed, and has elicited three remarkable performances from Pearce, Jarvis and newcomer Vincent Miller whose calm, watchful presence hogs the screen.
INSIDE was shot in a newly commissioned prison near Geelong and filled with non-professional actors, many of whom had spent time inside themselves. It ends the film an intensity that makes every scene sing with a rare and very welcome authenticity.
There’s nothing new about stories of toxic masculinity and redemption in the prison system. What sets INSIDE apart is how Williams takes us beyond that to a place of uneasy tension where very real, very emotional relationships are explored with raw honesty. And he does it without skipping a beat.
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