“CONBODY VS EVERYBODY”

With her debut feature “Down to the Bone,” it was clear 21 years ago that Debra Granik would become one of the best independent filmmakers to depict social realism on screen. Granik went on to make “Winter’s Bone” and “Leave No Trace,” which featured the breakout roles for Jennifer Lawrence and Thomasin McKenzie, respectively. Both films continued to show Granik’s compelling knack for grounded familial drama. Through observational writing and direction, she immersed us in the everyday lives of her characters. She leaned into their internal conflicts and the bleak systems that pushed them onto the margins of society.

In the eight years since Granik’s 2018 release of “Leave No Trace,” she’s been documenting another compelling story. While not her first foray into the documentary world (see “Stray Dog”), “Conbody VS Everybody” is an infinitely more expansive chronicling by comparison. This five-part docuseries follows Coss Marte, a formerly incarcerated New Yorker, as he attempts to rebuild his life on the Lower East Side. Full of underdog spirit, “Conbody VS Everybody” exemplifies community-building and serves as a powerful critique of the unjust criminal justice system.

As the series outlines in its fifth and final chapter, more than 650,000 individuals return home from U.S. prisons each year. With a focus on Marte and his inner circle from the beginning, we are given a depiction of societal reentry through the lives of everyday people. There is a silent life sentence that the formerly incarcerated community faces after they serve their time, especially individuals from marginalized groups. Reentering society comes with heavy stigmatization, economic inequality, housing crises, and several more obstacles. Many return to their history and culture, erased by gentrified neighborhoods and white privilege. “Conbody VS Everybody” spotlights former drug dealer Coss Marte’s fitness-forward mission to rebuild the community he grew up in, and help everyone around him feel truly seen.

While incarcerated, Marte developed his own workout routine and lost over 70 pounds in 6 months using only his body weight. He then inspired and motivated fellow inmates to lose over 1000 pounds combined. Following Marte’s release in 2013, he became a personal trainer, turning his intensive method into a prison-style bodyweight gym called ConBody. Skillfully documenting over eight years of Marte’s life since 2014, the series illustrates how changes he made within himself sparked fellow stories of survival and redemption around him. When Marte expanded his business into a brick-and-mortar, he employed other formerly incarcerated individuals as trainers. Each individual represents different stages of rehabilitation and a fight for second chances in the midst of mass incarceration.

Through several years’ worth of footage, Granik finds the emotional beats of an underdog story. Each unfiltered chapter gives us a clear sense of what America’s prison industrial complex looks and feels like on a day-to-day basis. The unadorned footage speaks for itself and speaks to a country that continued to fluctuate right before Granik’s eyes. She has an incredible guiding subject in Marte, whose adaptability and entrepreneurial skills spotlight the uphill battle that formerly incarcerated individuals face to stay out of prison. One could easily sense Granik’s genuine interest and attentiveness from behind the camera as she watches Marte defy several odds stacked against him. His business-savvy mindset exemplifies one way in which he breaks through barriers. We observe his expansion of the ConBody brand, such as passing out flyers, organizing pop-ups, and pivoting to outdoor gym classes following the COVID-19 outbreak.

The cameras also follow him into various conference settings, where he hopes to make allies and pitch deals with investors. One of the series’s most illuminating segments reveals, quite plainly, that investors are in the business of surface-level small talk. You could spot the disingenuousness from a mile away; they claim to feel inspired by Marte’s story, but refuse to follow through with action. As Marte’s personal advisor points out, there is a prejudiced risk associated with the idea of going into business with formerly incarcerated individuals. The conversation speaks to a larger, prevalent issue: Marte has reentered society in an age of startups and the pursuit of one’s dreams, yet the capitalist system itself is designed to work against him. We are given a bleak context in chapter two, which features footage of conference vendors selling prison technologies such as tasers and maximum-security doors.

With each chapter, Granik artfully expands from Marte’s individual efforts to his community impact. Whether mentoring someone newly released from prison, teaching an “Intro to Corrections” class, spending time with his son, Cathaniel, or showing up for a friend in need, we are observing how his experiences make a crucial difference in real time. The most vivid illustration comes in chapter two, when Marte follows up with both the parole office and the correctional facility regarding the release of his friend, Shane. After several runarounds over back-and-forth phone calls, Marte manages to track the status of the paperwork required for granting Shane’s release. This ordeal immediately poses the question: What if Shane did not have a support system in place? He would have slipped through the cracks.

When you create a welcoming space and lead with empathy as Marte does, opportunities for personal growth start to blossom. Individuals start to feel more empowered to break through preconceived notions and improve self-esteem. While every day is an uphill battle, this series advocates for the formerly incarcerated community to rebuild their lives after incarceration. In addition to Marte’s, the individual stories of everyone featured are given a much-needed spotlight. With a nuanced perspective, Granik’s “Conbody VS Everybody” sparks necessary discussions of prevalent issues and follows an incredibly challenging yet hopeful path towards redemption.