Middle of Nowhere

Ruby drops out of nursing school and decides to serve her husband Derek's eight year sentence alongside him: the weekly bus, the visiting hours, the phone cards, the waiting. Ava DuVernay's film is not about the prison but about the life of the person left outside, and the real question is to whom this woman owes her own time. Emayatzy Corinealdi plays her inward and stubborn. Its finest observation is that past a certain point loyalty becomes habit, and that Ruby notices. DuVernay won the directing award at Sundance for it, the first Black woman to take that prize. The pace is slow, the camera close, the music sparse. Who it is for: viewers who like American independent film and stories about what incarceration costs families. Who it is not for: anyone waiting for incident, since the film is deliberately still.