Stranger Inside

REVIEW
Cheryl Dunye (Watermelon Woman) tells an amazing story with this assuredly directed film that uses the familiar “women-in-prison” genre to create a powerful story of familial longings with a delicately scripted story and a devastating climax. Rarely has there been a film that so explosively but tenderly delves into the feelings of rage, loneliness, anger and love of African-American women. While serving a sentence at a juvenile detention center, young Treasure (Yolanda Ross) learns that Brownie (Davenia McFadden), the mother she barely remembers, is doing life in the adjoining women’s state prison.

Treasure orchestrates a transfer to the prison, intent on a reunion with the mother who abandoned her as a small child. But Brownie, a tough-as-nails ringleader, has other inmates she calls "daughter": her crew that forms a makeshift family unit in this pressure cooker of anger, hostility, rage and hopelessness. The two hit it off, Brownie liking the girl’s tough attitude, quiet vulnerability and desire for connection while Treasure longs to be near but has difficulty revealing that she is her daughter. Brownie begins using her as a soldier, demanding unquestioning obedience through hard-core discipline. Treasure has hard lessons to learn about trust and commitment amid the corruption, backstabbing and ineffectual bureaucracy and is ill prepared for a vicious twist of ultimate betrayal.

A well-acted, tightly scripted work from director Dunye on the revolving-door American prison system. As Dunye comments, "I intentionally included women, people of color and queers in the production of my film...stranger babies are what we call them: these are the people who are not included in the status quo of what we see. Who else is going to give us a voice but us?"