Ricky begins with a group of women praying over its тιтle character, full name Ricardo Smith. He has just been released after serving 15 years and prayer may be one of the only ways these women can exert some power over the brutal American prison system that is designed to entrap men like him. With 12 months of parole, Ricky needs all the support he can get to ensure he doesn’t serve more time.

We learn that after a robbery gone wrong, Ricky was charged with attempted murder, tried as an adult, and incarcerated at the age of 15. Entering the prison system as a child, Ricky leaves it at 30 years old, stuck somewhere between the young man he was and the adult he was forced to become.

Ricky Returns To A Hostile World

Stephan James Is Remarkable In Rashad Frett’s Feature Debut

Even before he went through the system, the odds were stacked against Ricky. Post-incarceration, though, the world is even more hostile. He struggles to keep a job because of his record, but his parole terms require that he has one. Ricky is surrounded by friends and acquaintances that don’t fully respect the rules of his release. Most of all, though, Ricky is prone to self-sabotage and swings of untamed emotion.

This is all Frett and co-writer Lin Que Ayoung’s way of showing how post-prison rehabilitation is virtually non-existent and why recidivism rates are so high. Ricky may be back home with his mother and younger brother in East Hartford, Connecticut, but even with a robust support system, he struggles to find purpose beyond survival, even expressing at one point that he thinks going back to prison might be better for him anyway.

It’s a lot for anyone to face, but for someone like Ricky – emotionally underdeveloped after spending 15 years in fight-or-flight mode – it’s nearly insurmountable. None of this would work without James’ powerful performance. At the film’s Sundance premiere, the actor said Ricky is a “two-pronged” film about adult Ricky trying to stay out of prison and a coming-of-age story about the 15-year-old Ricky adapting to this new world.

We see him struggling to learn how an iPhone works, putting the phone to his ear when a friend FaceTimes him. He still needs to learn how to drive, an obstacle that gets in the way of everything from job interviews to parole meetings. We watch him lose his virginity to Cheryl, a fellow member of a post-incarceration support group. All of these moments and other subtle ones along the way are imbued with a knowingness from James – he’s intensely vulnerable and shut off from the world at the same time.

There are small moments of hope in Ricky, too. His mother is there for him in his lowest moments and Simbi Kali gives her all in a few key scenes that will rip your heart out. Ricky’s parole officer Joanne (an impactful Sheryl Lee Ralph) relates to Ricky more than he may realize thanks to her own upbringing in the same East Hartford Caribbean community.

Ricky doesn’t ignore reality, though. It’s an unflinching look at how the prison industrial complex affects one man and the community around him, ripple effects of injustice propping up destructive patterns that are impossible to escape from. It’s not an uplifting movie in that regard, but it is an important one that still finds room for hope.

Ricky premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival on January 24.