Sundance (Online) Film Festival #5: Ricky (2025)
A strong, if imperfect, examination of life after prison.
Ricky is a mostly engaging piece of cinema that is appropriately exasperating to watch at times even if there are some things that hold it back from being the masterpiece that it could have been.
In fact, to get those negatives out of the way first, the first one is that some of the writing started feeling a bit too repetitive after a while. This film is about a man named Ricky (played by Stephan James) who returns home after staying in prison for 15 years and while most of it is told very well, there were instances where it started treading through the same ground from a plot standpoint multiple times after a while. As a result, the only other flaw that I had with the film is that the pacing started to feel clunky, mainly during the second act. It’s not a terrible second act or anything like that and there is definitely some strong drama found within it, but there were some scenes that I felt dragged out for too long and ended up breaking the rhythm of the film’s otherwise strong pacing. Had the film been slightly shorter and less redundant, it could have resulted in a tighter film with the perfect amount of focus since there were also some aspects of the story that were either unnecessary or felt plopped in out of nowhere (particularly Joanne’s arc during the third act).
Having said all that though, the majority of the film works on the whole. Writers Rashad Frett (who also directed the film) and Lina Que Ayoung do a mostly good job in presenting a story in which a man tries to readjust to living life normally (post-incarceration) after a 15 year long stay in prison. It is not an easy method at all, particularly due to how much prison can affect your psyche, and this film showcases the repercussions of that as well as the actions of the criminal justice system in its entirety. However, Ricky additionally serves as a tale of a man struggling to find a sense of self reliance for himself, which makes for an understandable inner conflict for him given how he was unable to achieve it due to being kept in prison ever since he was a teenager. Because of this, the character has many moments in which he feels too devoured from his past and we see how it affects the people around him.
However, even when the titular Ricky is doing a ton of questionable actions, Rashad Frett manages to find the humanity within the character through his delicate direction. We see every ounce of Ricky’s emotional & psychological damage through how humanistic Frett’s directorial choices are and it leads to quite a few emotional beats that hit. It also helps that Stephan James’s performance brings this character to life in such an extravagant manner through a ton of grounded empathy even when some of the more repetitive parts of the writing hold him back a bit. In fact, the entire cast is really good here with a particular shoutout towards Sheryl Lee Ralph as Joanne. Despite her arc taking too much of a backseat for a majority of the film (as mentioned earlier), she makes up for it by bringing a sense of emotion depth and conviction to a parole officer who just wants the best for Ricky that way he doesn’t get into any more trouble. Other strong players in the cast include Sean Nelson, Titus Welliver, Maliq Johnson, Karen Chilton, & Simbi Khali.
In spite of only of a couple of faults, I found Ricky to be a very good, compassionate, and even intense at times film that brilliantly showcases how difficult it can be to readapt into a life that you haven’t experienced or lived much while finding the warmth within such a serious topic.
And that is it for today’s review! Do be on the lookout for more Sundance 2025 coverage throughout these next few days! See you all again next time!
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