Review of Starred Up (2014) by Kc E — 29 Aug 2014

Life in prison is ruthless and revolting. The inmates are suffering from deep and horrifying psychological issues that lead to frightening outbursts of fury and even to acts of vengeful violence. These souls are evidently troubled. Their bodies are trapped within these dour, grimy, and hopeless edifices, yes, but their minds are equally as confined and hampered. Their minds are hindered by aggressive restraint to the point of excruciating pressure and painful solitude. A 19-year-old (Jack O'Connell) is just transferred (or as they call it in the UK, "starred up") to a legitimate, no-holds-barred adult prison from a juvenile facility. Right from the get-go, he's quite eager to stir trouble in the prison and provoke conflict-everything from insulting the guards to gruesomely bashing a fellow inmate's head against his cell's wall. This young man surely is going to face a difficult time adjusting to this type of strictly controlled environment, as well as surviving its merciless quarters.

A volunteer in the prison (played by Homeland's Rupert Friend) is enthusiastically heading a special program that seats several inmates in a circle for a casual conversation to ensue that might potentially result in a slew of insults directed toward one another by its end. The man's challenge is to subdue the participants' usual rage and overall behavior through subtly peaceful means. In essence, it's an anger management course in a prison that seeks to delve extensively into the hearts and minds of these apparent brutes, consoling their deranged conditions as a form of rehabilitation-as a preparation for the probable return to the normal world.

With that being said, the prison system tends to approach things from a vastly differential point of view. The prison system's rehabilitation methods have been distraughtly questioned since its inception whether those methods include psychotherapy or brutal punishment (tightly cuffing an agitated inmate and pushing his head real deep into the bed with seriously forceful arms is a rather strange solution, is it not?), the latter of which unfortunately far more common. Anyway, O'Connell not only acts belligerently towards his cellmates but towards his locked-up father (Ben Mendelsohn) as well as they conveniently find themselves in the same wing. In the place of love stands a severely strained and broken relationship between father and son that's in desperate need of repair, considering the signs of momentary familial compassion for one another. Prison isn't only an incredibly grueling place to survive with all the hostility and "hits" transpiring, but we also have to consider the amount of sheer tedium that's a large part of everyone's daily routine...continuing for 13 or 20 or 40 years-literally doing time, so to speak. This unbelievably realistic and depressing cinematic piece offers us a glance at these daily activities from mopping one's excrement off the floor to pulling crucial objects from one's derrière.

Of course, the sheer rawness of this picture is substantially elevated by the amazingly authentic performances from all those involved. Unlike his frighteningly menacing turn in Animal Kingdom, Mendelsohn initially gives the impression of hardness and spite; however, he eventually becomes an ultimately likable and sympathetic character. Even though his spirit conceals behind an intimidating and cold form, his inner emotions of real concern and fear truly beg through those eyes. Mendelsohn better blow up onto the spotlight anytime soon because he's a phenomenal actor who brings astounding verisimilitude to every one of his roles while also possessing so much charisma-a quintessential character actor who instantly compels the audience as they anticipate his every utterance and movement.

All in all, Starred Up satisfyingly exposes us to the complex personalities that typically inhabit a prison who're additionally in a perpetual struggle with the prison's staff and administration most of all, and it gives us even more reason to drastically reform the penal system as it erringly exist today. It's a dispiriting look but a necessary one, proving the utter power of cinema to perfectly capture an event as if it's a documentary. Not every film requires a gorgeous color palette/visual style and fantastical story elements to remind you that it's a motion picture. Starred Up is of the breed that isn't shaded with pretense and traditional narrative; everything about it feels real just like The Wire felt so spectacularly real.