Holloway review — six former inmates open up movingly about life behind bars
As proved by the four seasons and 130 episodes of HBO's In Treatment, there are few subjects more innately suited to wrenching emotional drama than a high-stakes therapy session. And the stakes rarely get higher than in this documentary, a moving film about a five-day group therapy session for six women who were inmates at Holloway prison in London.
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Shot in 2021 before the building's demolition, it has a deceptively simple format. The women are returned to the crumbling edifice, placed in a seated circle in the old chapel and, under the supervision of a trauma counsellor, asked to explore the often harrowing psychological consequences of the prison experience.
The tension is in the women's initial denial and the tough carapace of their coping mechanisms. Two of the younger subjects claim that prison life was a 'walk in the park', with one, Sarah, saying that she won't be opening up to anyone in the group because of her trust issues. 'If I trust you then you can do bare shit to me, and I'm not on with that!' she says. Her journey, and that of the film, will be a gradual softening and a breaking open into sadness, understanding and, yes, trust.
It's niftily co-directed by Daisy-May Hudson and Sophie Compton, who are savvy enough to include scenes of the women objecting to the camera and establishing exactly how they will tolerate regular film-making intrusions. Hudson made the tearjerking social drama Lollipop, which came out last week, and is swiftly establishing herself as a directorial powerhouse. Compton recently announced that male film critics are wholly problematic and that, hampered by their gender, they are simply unable to 'understand' films made by women. By some miraculous stroke of good fortune, however, this male critic seems to understand Holloway. Or at least he claims he does. Typical. ★★★★☆12A, 86minIn cinemas from Jun 20
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