Ricky (Stephen James) has only been out of prison a few weeks, but the real world has already become too much for him. His parole officer Joanne (Sheryl Lee Ralph) keeps showing up at his house to berate him. His mother Winsome (Simbi Kali) treats him like he’s already a lost cause. He just lost a job that was supposed to be guaranteed by childhood friend Terrence (Sean Nelson). Fifteen years ago he convinced Ricky to do a robbery with him; when the heat came down on them, Terrence split and Ricky was left with the consequences. And having spent so much of his life in prison, he doesn’t know how to be around people anymore. He struggles to speak and look others in the eye. He’s a strong guy with muscles and an imposing stature, but inside it’s like he’s still that scared teenager who was arrested all those years ago. He doesn’t know how he’s going to make it, but Ricky has one thing going for him––he knows how to cut hair. With dreams of opening a barbershop one day, Ricky attempts to build a life for himself.
But the people around him aren’t as helpful as they could be, often treating Ricky’s presence like an annoyance. Incarcerated since adolescence, Ricky never got the chance to learn how to drive a car. While he needs to get to meetings with his parole officer and court-mandated support group, his little brother James (Maliq Johnson) is unreliable in getting him around. With his mother busy or working, Ricky struggles to fulfill his responsibilities as a not-quite-free man. In group he connects with Cheryl (Andrene Ward-Hammond) but she doesn’t seem to really understand him. She’s older and jaded by the world, sometimes taking it out on him. Ricky knows he doesn’t deserve it––he hasn’t even got to live a real adult life yet––but he takes everything Cheryl throws at him on the chin. Still, things aren’t all bad––single mother Jaz (Imani Lewis) is sweet on Ricky, and more patient with him than Cheryl. He cuts her son’s hair for free, both out of genuine care for the kid and to show Jaz what kind of man he really is.
In his writing-directing debut, Rashad Frett shows us a tender man in a harsh world, imprisoned for half his life due to actions made in desperation. Ricky has never had a chance to show people who he is because he hasn’t had the time or nurturing to figure out how. There’s an element of this that’s true to life––people look at felons like second-class citizens, too base and barbaric to be among the rest of us. Incineration is dehumanization while those of us who remain free are encouraged to stigmatize “criminals,” even when they look and talk just like us. Throughout the film, Ricky rarely does anything morally wrong; all of his choices are informed by a lack of options and a society salivating at the chance to put him right back behind bars. To the world, he hasn’t done his time yet. His time never gets to end.
James gives a career-best performance as Ricky, a scared kid in a man’s muscled body. Despite his appearance, Ricky never really poses a threat to anyone, nor does he want conflict; he just wants to be able to take care of himself, make an honest living, not be a burden to his mother. Local man Leslie Torino (Titus Welliver) sees that potential in Ricky, promising to hold onto a car he’s been fixing up to sell to him. The moments between Welliver and James are among the film’s most tender, allowing for a different kind of masculine mentorship. But it’s Ralph who runs away with Ricky in the end, playing a parole officer who actually cares about the people she works with. Like many of the women herein, Joanne is harsh with Ricky. But there’s a method to her madness: she knows he doesn’t belong in prison and the only way she knows how to keep him out of there is to keep pushing. It may not be the right way, but it’s the only one she knows. Ricky is a film full of characters like this: though they desperately wish to break the cycle that keeps everyone down, no one knows just how to do it. Ultimately, Ricky is about the patterns that dominate our lives and the Hollywood endings that don’t exist in the real world.
Ricky premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.