Many prison movies follow predictable paths: the indestructible tough-guy, the underestimated fresh inmate who turns the tables, or the distant but magnetic leader who holds a divided cell block together. These stories don’t generally revolve around the inmate constantly at the bottom, though—the inmate that everyone picks on while slowly losing their sanity. But in Wasteman, the feature debut of Cal McMau, this is the story. 

McCau doesn’t attempt to reinvent the prison drama, nor does it make any effort to pretend it is. Somehow, though, Wasteman emerges as a compelling, quietly powerful film and one of the surprise highlights to come out of TIFF 2025 this year.

Taylor (David Jonsson) has spent the last several years serving a sentence in a British prison. To get through the long days, he finds solace in the numbness of opioids. Following years of cruel conditions, Taylor is finally getting a small advantage: early release and the possibility of meeting the son he’s never met. All he has to do is stay out of trouble. But once again, that flimsy peace is broken with the arrival of a new cellmate, Dee (Tom Blyth). 

Dee is a volatile personality and becomes Taylor’s greatest risk. The new member asserts himself as the alpha among inmates, and Taylor quickly becomes drawn into his sphere, seduced by the danger, the power, and by the strange yet budding loyalty they share. What follows is a heartbreaking fall into a disturbing, yet wickedly tender, alliance that consumes them both.

From the opening moments, writers Hunter Andrews and Eoin Doran illustrate that Taylor, the introverted man wrestling with his own demons, and Dee, the flashily extroverted character high on life, are worlds apart, which only magnifies their eventual and intractable conflict. Their connection is harmful from the outset; the film bluntly articulates how hard drugs destroy a man’s soul and how the violent masks that prisoners wear can become inseparable from their true selves. Throughout his time in prison, Taylor has managed to survive by keeping his head down and staying out of trouble, but now he must face the question of how far he is willing to go to survive.

McMau is an experienced director of commercials, music videos, and short films, and he quickly shows in this film that he is more comfortable behind the lens on a big screen. He creates a wholly original and visceral cinematic language that is ideally adapted to Andrews and Doran’s relentless, high-octane script. The film drifts between the carefully composed frame of Lorenzo Levrini’s cinematography—with cool tones and shadows that match Taylor’s isolation and regret—and raw, vertical phone-camera footage of the spontaneous prison fights. By balancing the spectrum of found footage and typical filmmaking without full adherence to either style, Wasteman establishes itself as a new and bold addition to the ever-crowded prison film genre.

The undeniable centerpiece of Wasteman is the heavyweight performances of Jonsson and Blyth, two of the most exciting emerging names in Hollywood. Jonsson’s Taylor is a tour de force; his portrayal of innocence is profound and authentic, avoiding the more obvious, rage-fueled cliches that McMau may have utilized. Jonsson is an exceptional talent who makes the transition from vulnerability to simmering vengeance effortless. 

Blyth is equally impressive and rises to the occasion, delivering an enormous and complex performance as Dee, in contrast to his more restrained performances in The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes (2023) and Plainclothes (2025). Blyth’s relentless, ruthless aggression acts as the perfect foil to Jonsson’s quiet softness, as Taylor’s primal survival instincts crash against a deeper hope for something more outside the prison walls.

Wasteman might have some of the growing pains associated with a debut, as McMau begins to discover his footing and improve in filmmaking for future projects. Nonetheless, the film still establishes him as a distinct voice with a compelling story worth following. The story may be simple, but with Wasteman‘s exciting editing choices and dynamic performances, it is a fresh, thrilling, identifiable story in a crowded field already full of classics. More filmmakers should be bold and risk with such ungainly stories—especially on a debut—but few manage to go as far as this film, making for a commendable and unfathomable debut.

Review Courtesy of Bryan Sudfield

Feature Image Courtesy of TIFF