Compelling watching and some terrific performances. A storyline that kept up the interest and camera work that knew how to caress its subjects. So what's my gripe? After several days' thinking about it, I have to conclude it was lesbian fantasy more than the realistic drama it claims to be. Treasure had beauty and impact and I LOVED Shadow's mobile face - but we might as well have been watching two teenage boys - theirs was a lean male beauty. And as for Brownie!! Great performance but why did she also have to have the physique of a man -- a squat brutal one in this case? There wasn't any sense that we were watching ordinary women in a terrible predicament. And had none of them men or children on the outside? Where was their history? That older woman in group session was almost stuck in to compensate for the lack of all that. Secondly I agree that Treasure's brooding impassive personality prevented us from knowing her thoughts and really feeling for her and in the end robbed the film of emotional impact.

Cheryl Dunye's gritty jail drama STRANGER INSIDE tells the story of Treasure, a young girl who's gone on the wrong side of the tracks of life and who gets reunited with her birth mother, Brownie, in jail. Instead of finding love and reassurance, though, she learns Brownie is a very dangerous and violent person who may even be using her for her interests while in jail, but Treasure is so determined to win Brownie over that all logic flies out the window, and even when in one chilling scene Brownie threatens to slice her, she still continues to come back. Social displacement and broken families are at the center of this very honest indie film which I caught on HBO recently, and there are never any moments of exploitation so common in women's prison pictures. In fact, this is an unsentimental study of the nature of violent people who even in their violence are still trying to make some sense out of their lives, and it takes actors not yet tainted by vanity and glamour to accept these roles. Yolonda Ross, Davenia McFadden, and Rain Phoenix all play their parts with verve, and even if the ending is somewhat downbeat and ambivalent, you won't forget Treasure. Highly recommended.

This film takes you on a roller coaster ride through a treacherous and dismal glimpse in the life of a street-hardened incarcerated woman named Treasure, a gang-banging "G" girl,searching for her imprisoned mother who abandoned her in her youth. Often times, prison movies rely heavily on violent content to carry the movie over the top. This movie is intriguing because it delves into the relationships and encounters Treasure has in her quest to find her mother, showing not only her vulnerability and humanness, but also her ruthlessness and desperation...a great character study. This film could have been outstanding had more attention been paid to other main characters in depth as was Treasure's character. The film's ending was quite surprising and not what you would expect from your average prison movie.I would recommend this film for your collection.

There are quite a few things wrong with this film. Let's see:We don't like any character too much. The main character's quiet, yet aggressive, manner hinders the character development. The duality of love among prison "families" and prison violence is not totally believable. At times, the movie actually seems slow moving.This movie is very similar to some other prison movie in every aspect except the ending.I sure didn't expect the ending yet now it makes perfect sense. All by itself the ending makes the movie worth watching.