More than three quarters of the 650,000 inmates released from prison in the United States every year end up back behind bars within five years. Former drug dealer Coss wants to beat the statistics. After a long prison sentence, he returns to his family on New York’s Lower East Side in 2014, determined to build a legal existence for himself. Together with other former inmates, he opens a gym in his old neighbourhood which is rapidly being gentrified. If a guy like him can master this extreme challenge, can other ex-convicts do the same?
Filmmaker Debra Granik observed Coss’s efforts over a period of eight years. Through her camera, we experience frictions and obstacles, setbacks and successes, and learn what enormous stress it is to succeed against all odds in a racist environment that knows no mercy. Like a Bildungsroman – Granik explicitly refers to the social-realist literature of Charles Dickens –, the film is divided into chapters. The long form enables her to follow several narrative strands and focus on a variety of protagonists. This generates an increasing pull that soon makes us forget the time, lament every failure, and cheer every small victory.