June 20, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Charles Williams
Culture Representation: Taking place in Australia, the dramatic film “Inside” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class and middle-class and are connected in some way to the Australian prison system.
Culture Clash: Three men living in an Australian prison have a collision course of personal entanglements inside and outside of the prison.
Culture Audience: “Inside” will appeal primarily to fans of the movie’s headliners and emotionally raw movies about people living in prison.
“Inside” is similar to other gritty prison dramas, such as 2009’s “Bronson” and and 2014’s “Starred Up,” where the performances are better than the absorbing but flawed screenplays. Redemption and punishment are open to intepretation. In other words, this is not the type of movie that gives easy answers or has a tidy ending.
Written and directed by Charles Williams, “Inside” is his feature-film directorial debut. The movie had its world premiere at the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival and its North American premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival. “Inside” takes place in Australia, where the movie was filmed.
Inside focus on three main characters, who are all living at the Gadara Prison for men:
- Mel Blight (played by Vincent Miller) is a brooding 17-year-old who has recently been transferred from a juvenile detention center. Mel has one year before he is eligible for a parole release. He is incarcerated for brutally assaulting a schoolmate when they were both about 12 years old, during a playground fight. The other boy died from his injuries. Mel has been incarcerated since he was 12.
- Mark Shepard (played by Cosmo Jarvis), who is in his 30s, committed first-degree murder when he was 13 years old. He is perhaps the prison’s most notorious inmate. A TV news report describes Mark as committing “one of the worst crimes this country has ever seen.” What did Mark do? He raped and murdered an 11-year-old boy.
- Warren Murfett (played by Guy Pearce), who is in his late 50s, has a long history of committing crimes. His most recent prison sentence has been for assault and drug possession. Warren, who is in recovery for addictions to meth and alcohol, has an upcoming parole hearing in the beginning of the movie. Warren is considered to be a “model prisoner” who’s capable of saying and doing the right things stay out of trouble in prison.
When Mel first arrives at the prison, he’s assigned to be Mark’s cellmate. It’s one of the flaws of the screenplay, because in real life, it’s highly unlikely that a murderer of Mark’s notoriety would be matched with a teenage newcomer for a cell mate. In the movie, Mark mixes freely with the prison’s general population. In real life, a murderer such as Mark would be kept in a more restrictive part of the prison, partly for punishment and partly for the prisoner’s own safety.
What “Inside” portrays accurately about the prison system is that inmates who are convicted of first-degree sexual murderers of children are considered the lowest of the low in prison hierarchy. These types of murderers often have targets on their backs to be singled out for assaults or worse by other inmates and/or prison employees. One of the subjective questions presented throughout “Inside” is whether not Mark is worthy of forgiveness. Without revealing too much of the movie’s plot, there’s a reason why the lives of Mel, Mark and Warren intertwine, other than the fact that they are all living in the same prison.
Mark has become a born-again Christian, who preaches at the prison chapel, but there are numerous people inside and outside the prison who despise him and want Mark to die. Australia does not have the death penalty. And some people who believe that Mark has changed for the better believe that he should be paroled because he committed the murder when he was a child. Mark also wants to be paroled, but he knows the odds are stacked against him.
Mel does not know what crimes Mark committed when Mel becomes Mark’s cellmate. However, Mel instinctively feels uneasy around Mark and asks to be transferred to another cell. In the meantime, Mel is careful not to do anything that might anger or offend Mark. For example, he agrees to play keyboards during Mark’s chapel services.
Mark shows Mel some illustrations that Mark made. These illustrations look like they were made by a child, which is an indication that Mark has some developmental issues. The point the movie is trying to make is that Mark might be a man physically, but emotionally, he has some child-like qualities. There are indications that Mark could be on the autism spectrum, but there is no discussions in the movie about Mark possibly having this medical condition.
Mark talks like he’s got a mouthful of marbles, but when he’s up on the chapel pulpit preaching, he has a commanding presence and gets people’s attention, even if some of that attention is jeering and heckling from some people in the audience. Mark also speaks in tongues and rants in Latin when “the Holy Spirit” overtakes him. Is Mark a fraud? Or has he genunly become a pious and remorseful person?
Meanwhile, prison officials decide that Warren would make a good mentor to troubled Mel, who is usually quiet but who occasionally lashes out with a violent temper. For example, there’s a scene where Mel has some type of angry meltdown and starts bashing a chair at a prison window that doesn’t break. Flashbacks and voiceover narration from Mel throughout the movie reveal that he has unresolved issues about his own father’s imprisonment. (Raif Weaver has the role of pre-teen Mel in these flashbacks. Angus Cerini has the role of Mel’s father.)
Warren and Mel develop a tentative friendship that is almost like a father/son relationship. Warren has his own parental issues, including an estrangement from his young adult son Adrian Murfett (played by Toby Wallace), who has a short but impactful scene in the movie. One of the things that Mel and Warren like to do on a regular basis is a game where Mel asks Warren trivia questions about pop culture, and Warren does his best to answer the questions correctly. These moments are some of the few comforting interactions in what is otherwise a depiction of an often-bleak and tension-filled existence.
Mel battles with feelings of self-hatred and doesn’t have much hope that he could be paroled early. He says in a voiceover: “People like us shouldn’t be released. We’re broken … You can see it in us, even as kids.” The movie subtly floats the ongoing “nature versus nurture” debate of whether or not hardcore criminals are born or made, without leaning more toward one side over the other.
Miller (who makes his feature-film debut in “Inside”) and Peace give authentically raw performances as the emotionally damaged Mel and Warren, who both have personal demons that they don’t like to discuss out loud. Mel has barely repressed rage issues that Mel doesn’t know how to handle. Warren has a world-weary attitude of regrets that he admits to but wants to forget. The performance of Jarvis as Mark is much more complex because it keeps people guessing about how sincere Mark is about being redeemed.
Many movies about prison depict a constant sense of danger and inmates with big personalities. “Inside” has those elements but also skillfully portrays the monotony of living on a regimented prison schedule and the ways that certain inmates build trust with each other in an environment that often teaches that no one can be trusted. As hopeless and grim as life can be in prison, “Inside” also shows in unflinching ways that prison reform can be difficult for some incarcerated people if life on the outside of prison is tougher to navigate than being inside prison.
Quiver Distribution released “Inside” in select U.S. cinemas on June 20, 2025. The movie was released in Australia on February 27, 2025.
