A valuable addition to the latest ”Sing“And its spiritually affirming story of how programs like rehabilitation through the arts have lowered recidivism rates by treating prisoners as human beings, Rashad Frett’s “Rich“Is a hard-hitting drama about one of the countless American men who never got the same chance. A complicated story without a particularly endearing hero to root for, film reflects the punitive nature of the post-prison system in a country where ex-prisoners are denied any support in their pursuit of a better future after their release from prison.
For 30-year-old Ricky Smith (Stephan James), life as a free man in Hartford, Connecticut is even more difficult than he feared. Fresh out of prison after serving 15 years behind bars – a full half of his time on Earth – for robbery and attempted murder, Ricky finds his past lingers over every obstacle he faces on the outside. He’s more than a decade late to his first crack at unsupervised adulthood, and any sort of stability is proving nearly impossible to maintain.
There’s a reason why Ricky often mutters to himself that it might be “better inside than out.” In prison, the only home he’s ever known as an adult, every day was relatively the same. The outside world is far more chaotic, and the learning curve is mighty steep: Ricky has to find a job, keep that job, learn to drive, get a car, get a driver’s license, consistently go to group meetings with ex-offenders, and show up for his parole meetings officer (a tough Sheryl Lee Ralph), all while staying off drugs and avoiding contact with the people he met in prison. Fail to meet any of these conditions, and Ricky could be locked up again.
Returning to his childhood home and living with his mother (Simbi Kali), Ricky strives to re-establish himself in the Caribbean American community he left as a teenager. The threat of recidivism hangs over his head like a dark cloud, wreaking havoc on Ricky’s mind and body—both anxiety often expressed in uncontrollable shaking. He is like a teenager who remains confined to an adult man’s body, unable to control the external factors that brought him to this moment in his life as he tries to repair his relationship with his mother while attempting a romantic connection with a young single mother (Imani Lewis) who lets Ricky cut his son’s hair – a skill he picked up in prison.
Ricky must learn to set his own schedule, something the perpetually late and often apologetic man can’t seem to handle. He solicits jobs from old acquaintances, but maintaining them is a challenge. Despite becoming a whiz at cutting hair, he can’t seem to establish himself as a hairdresser. Despite his parole officer’s many warnings and several chances, life has a way of catching up with a criminal who hasn’t had even the slightest of head starts.
This all-too-familiar premise can lend itself to melodrama, but “Ricky” emerges as a stunningly understated examination of one man’s struggle to achieve stability. Frett and Lin Que Ayoung’s nuanced screenplay mines rich specifics from the tropes of its story, as the film delves into Hartford’s Caribbean American community with the same attention to detail as it examines life after prison and the threat of recidivism. With the same intensity of the man it follows, Sam Motame’s hand-held camera viscerally physicalizes Ricky’s frustration without ever betraying the unpalatable reality of his circumstances.
These circumstances soon give rise to an identity crisis that mirrors Ricky’s numbed adolescence. It’s all in the name, which sounds more and more like a transition from childhood every time his parole officer refers to him as Ricardo, or a potential employer defaults to calling him Rick. The man behind the name may no longer be in prison, but “Ricky” is a prison of its own. And while it was clearly a prison of its own making, Frett’s film is less concerned with his quest for redemption than it is with a system designed to prevent hope for forward movement.
And yet, James imbues Ricky with such a deep bedrock of humanity that anything seems possible, even as the character’s mistakes become increasingly troubling as they begin to compound (viewers may feel compelled to reach through the screen and set a wake-up call for Ricky in a desperate bid to help keep him on schedule). Stoicism personified before the cracks start to show, James Layer’s ricky full of fear and joy, his performance never more nuanced or vivid than in the moments where the actor is forced to navigate both of these emotions at once, for example he is in the scene where he has sex after prison for the first time. Frett has a close-up of James’ face, the actor revealing his character’s teenage vulnerability with an all-encompassing realness.
“Ricky” is a personal story for Frett, a Hartford native whose knowledge and lived debut has been deeply informed by the experiences of people he knows from back home. It’s a powerful introduction to Frett’s prowess behind the camera, and a necessary postscript to films like “Sing Sing” for its honest pursuit of hope and humanity in a system designed to extinguish them both.
Grade: a-
“Ricky” premiered in 2025 Sundance Film festival. It is currently seeking US distribution.
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