It’s a standard complaint that trailers give away too much of the flick they’re advertising, but what happens when the very conceit of a movie elucidates its every ingredient? A promising lure for those who view watching lesser films as wasted time, it’s a pseudo-subgenre that dates back to the medium’s inception, made all the more prevalent by the onslaught of options brought about by tiny production houses and monolithic streaming services. There’s no sense in risking those precious hours on something with a less-than-certain payoff when there’s so much content that’s laser-focused on efficacy, trained with pinpoint accuracy to captivate, stimulate, and then release its target audience back into their tightly curated schedules. Entertainment by way of business lunch, this reductive thinking is often wielded against actioners, sports dramas, and romantic comedies, but it’s no less prevalent in awards season fodder, applying dour circumstances and inspirational uplift as though they’re ingredients in a time-worn recipe. If you didn’t already know that Sing Sing meets all these requirements, you probably just don’t know what it’s about. The prompt is also the synopsis.

Taking its name from the New York correctional facility where it lays its scene, Sing Sing follows a group of incarcerated men involved in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts Program, which sees inmates rehearse and perform anything from Shakespeare to original compositions for an audience of fellow detainees. Ostensibly led by the graceful and gifted Divine G (Colman Domingo), the movie acts as a fly on the wall for their various practices, brain storms, and social interactions, which come to involve Divine Eye (Clarence Maclin), a newcomer who possesses submerged talent and overt hostility in equal measure. Inspired by Eye’s suggestion that the group pursue comedy, the men embark on a new creation involving everything from Hamlet to Mummies to Freddy Kruger, all while forging new bonds, attending parole hearings, and discovering their more openly emotive sides. Don’t worry; they also make some tear jerking speeches along the way, captured by cameras that can’t help but swirl around the grandeur and naked humanity of it all.

Before delving into the ways that Sing Sing bends over backwards to give the paying customer exactly what they ordered, it’s worth celebrating the casting innovation of having real participants in the RTA program occupy nearly every role. Other than Domingo and a director played by Paul Raci, every other member of the ensemble is playing a fictionalized version of themselves, a decision undoubtedly made to bolster the flick’s verite bonafides that works better as a form of unique seasoning. Relatively untrained and hungry for the spotlight, the performers here bypass the anonymous polish of experience for something more casual and raw, especially in the case of both Macklin and Sean San José, who plays Divine G’s reliable ideological sparring partner. Despite occupying opposite ends of the spectrum of aggression, both bare a breezy charisma that affords the movie a few welcome beauty marks across its otherwise sanded-down surface. Their winsome turns aren’t the problem; the fact that both have you envisioning Oscar speeches is.

Director Greg Kwedar has created something that simply wouldn’t exist without the Academy Awards as a guiding light, a prestige picture that promises complexity and thorns but only has clarity and roses on offer. Those aren’t the worst things to bring to an audience, but there’s hardly a moment here that doesn’t drift along in a sort of overly familiar Important Movie malaise. Pat Scola’s camera work, while kinetic and lovely, favors a level of golden hour lighting that would make Terrance Malick blush, while Bryce Dessner’s cloying score never offers the viewer a moment to collect their thoughts before barging in with throat-clearing majesty. Domingo, who could charm and tug heartstrings by eating a sandwich, is both impressive and representative of the problem. His plaintive gaze out of sun-dappled windows is impossible to look away from, bludgeoning the audience with pathos in a movie that’s starved for the tiniest modicum of subtlety and room to breathe.

Our modern obsession with having every story be told by someone who could have lived it is surely reductive, but one wonders if Sing Sing could be suffering from a chronic case of whiteness. Despite inviting nearly every participant into the production process, Kwedar and his pair of co-writers look nothing like the protagonists on screen, and pitch the whole movie at a back-patting frequency that’s certain to delight the left-leaning viewers who would have championed it anyway. Espousing the importance of humor and levity with its every gesture, there’s nary a joke in sight, any hint of laughter or informality power-washed away in favor of life-affirming splendor. It’s a movie designed to prompt proclamations of love before anyone’s had a chance to decide whether they actually like it, a new acquaintance coming in for a bear hug before the relationship merits such an embrace. It’s handsomely made, well acted, and makes good on its promise, and those who either cherish factory-made stories of perseverance or want to follow along when Hollywood starts handing out plaudits in December will mistake Sing Sing for required viewing. After all, what could be better than getting precisely what you asked for?