Wasteman

In his debut feature, Wasteman director Cal McMau peels back the conventions of the prison drama to reveal something raw, intimate, and unsettling. Set within a claustrophobic and often brutal UK prison, Wasteman conjures a world where hyper-masculinity is identity and armour, and where even a flicker of vulnerability can be fatal.

At its heart is Taylor (David Jonsson, Rye Lane, Industry), a soft-spoken inmate serving a crushing sentence for a petty crime. He survives by becoming invisible: cutting hair, avoiding trouble, and occasionally numbing the monotony with pills, all the while clinging to faint memories of the son he hasn’t seen since infancy. Jonsson delivers a performance of remarkable restraint, each gesture seemingly shaped by years of swallowed pain.

After more than a decade inside, Taylor is suddenly offered early parole, thanks to a bureaucratic gift tied to prison overcrowding. But the prospect of freedom comes with a stern warning: one mistake, and it’s gone. Then comes Dee (Tom Blyth, also at this year’s Festival in The Fence), a volatile new cellmate with charm, menace, and a thirst for power. Dee is intent on becoming the “top boy” of the prison’s illicit drug trade and he wants Taylor by his side. Manipulative Dee draws Taylor into his orbit, dangling both protection and the means to connect with his now-teenage son.

As his prospective release date inches tantalizingly closer, Taylor faces an impossible choice: uphold a code that’s kept him alive, or risk everything for a second chance. Wasteman feels unflinchingly real but never voyeuristic.

JASON RYLE

Content advisory: violence, drug use