Kingsley Ben-Adir and Rob Morgan Prison Drama

A men’s prison full of lifers mostly in for murder, with a special cell block for seniors with degenerative neurological conditions? Sounds like a double-whammy downer. But in the invisibly sculpting hands of Swiss director Petra Volpe and the exquisite performances of two first-rate actors, Kingsley Ben-Adir and Rob Morgan, Frank & Louis is an uncommonly tender incarceration drama. Instead of tackling the usual staples like hierarchy, territoriality, simmering violence and payback, this is primarily a reflection on care work as a gift to the bestower as much as the receiver.

Volpe, who co-scripted the psychologically observant film with German writer Esther Bernstorff, draws somewhat of a connective thread between her English-language debut and her last feature, the shortlisted 2025 international Oscar submission for Switzerland, Late Shift. That tense hospital drama covered a day-in-the life of a dedicated surgical nurse in an understaffed ward. In the new movie, Ben-Adir’s character, Frank, sidles into healthcare to score points at his parole hearing. But cynical calculation gives way to transformative sense of purpose and perhaps redemption.

Given that it takes place entirely inside the prison walls and is largely a two-hander, Frank & Louis could easily work as a play. But Volpe and DP Judith Kaufmann give the movie an arresting cinematic physicality by punctuating the action with fluid tracking sequences, the camera following Frank along corridors, up and down stairs or across the prison yard.

He has just been transferred and is preparing to put his case for early release to the parole board when he applies to join the Yellow Coats — based on the Gold Coats program at California Men’s Colony in San Luis Obispo — filling an opening created by a longtime caregiver’s release. Under the program, younger inmates are trained to care for elderly prisoners living with dementia.

The training — at least to the extent it’s shown here — is more like being thrown in at the deep end. But it’s unlikely that any amount of preparation would give Frank the necessary skills to deal with Louis (Morgan) a proud, volatile and mean man around 60 whose mind is steadily deteriorating with Alzheimer’s.

The Yellow Coats’ job includes making sure their charges eat, getting them to appointments with the prison doctors, coaxing them to participate in recreational activities so they sleep at night and calming them when they grow agitated or mentally confused. But strong-willed Louis refuses to play nice; he is mistrustful and paranoid with Frank, taking an instant dislike to him.

This might sound like the set-up for a sentimental buddy scenario in which two closed-off, lonely men with decades of regret behind them find comfort and comradeship in their inevitably evolving bond. But neither the writers nor the actors are interested in anything so formulaic.

Louis frequently reacts to his diminishing autonomy with anger, but he does mellow toward Frank and grow to depend on him. Even so, there are no happy epiphanies for this once feared and hardened big-time criminal, only the enveloping fog of his illness.

But there are lovely moments of closeness in which Louis seems to regard the stranger with gratitude and even fondness — when Frank helps the older man out of his soiled trousers and cleans him up after an assault; or when the crowded cafeteria becomes too much for Louis so Frank takes him to his cell to eat instant noodles with hot sauce; or when he convinces him on a despondent day to get out of bed by suggesting they write a letter to Louis’ estranged daughter.

Frank becomes more invested in the work, dipping into the caregivers’ manual and reading up on understanding dementia. He keeps a wall up to some degree, but it’s clear that the job takes an emotional toll on him, increasingly so as Louis’ condition worsens.

Frank learns that the prison is a waystation for the elderly and infirm before they are transferred into hospice care, which puts a looming expiration date on his time with Louis. While he has his own concerns with the parole hearing, Frank comes to care about Louis’ welfare. A scene in which he gives Louis a sponge bath toward the end feels like a sacred ritual, a kind of purification for both men.

Volpe never pushes for emotional effect, showing restraint with her use of Oliver Coates’ melancholy, pensive score. The same goes for the solid supporting cast, including Indira Varma as the empathetic prison counsellor; René Pérez Joglar (the Puerto Rican rapper who performs as Residente) as a fellow Yellow Jacket who becomes a friend to Frank; and Rosalind Eleazar as Frank’s sister, with whom he shares touching moments in the visiting room.

But it’s the leads who both anchor and elevate the film. Morgan is heartbreaking as a man broken and lost, possibly even more so when he’s lucid enough to be aware of what’s happening to him, yet there’s no doubt he was once a ruthless thug. The charismatic Ben-Adir (so wonderful as Malcolm X in Regina King’s One Night in Miami) conveys the bruised soulfulness of Frank in an affectingly subdued and predominantly internalized performance.

Frank & Louis poses thoughtful questions about atonement and forgiveness, about how much sense it makes to keep ailing men behind bars when they no longer remember who they were or what they did. It’s an interesting angle for a prison drama, handled with great sensitivity by the filmmakers and cast.