Bold claim: Wasteman stares unflinchingly at the brutal reality of prison life and uses that harsh light to spotlight a breakthrough performance from David Jonsson. This is a film that leans into the enshrouding intensity of its setting, and it pays off by letting a rising star carry the weight of the story with quiet ferocity.
David Jonsson has been riding a rising trajectory, turning a brief turn in HBO’s Industry into a standout array of screen roles. He captivates as Rye Lane’s charming lead, then shifts to a tense, stuttering presence in Alien: Romulus, andNext, a tortured idealist in The Long Walk, a Stephen King adaptation. Wasteman suggests he’s on the edge of something even bigger, and watching him here makes that leap feel almost inevitable.
Cal McMau’s feature treads familiar ground with a prison feud centered on a bunk-by-bunk power struggle. Yet the atmosphere isn’t just loud violence; there’s a palpable stink in the air—a microcosm of a system that cages both bodies and voices, leaving little room for real agency. Jonsson anchors the film, turning brutal moments into something almost elegiac. His Taylor is a recovering Subutex user serving a 13-year sentence for a single catastrophic mistake, and the film’s early spark comes from the moment parole becomes a possible escape hatch—not as a triumph, but as a chance to reconnect with a son who barely remembers him.
Tom Blyth’s Dee walks into Taylor’s life with a swagger that could feel cartoonish, but Blyth threads a surprising grace into the performance. Dee isn’t just an antagonist; he’s a catalyst, provoking a sharper dynamic between Taylor and the world inside the walls. Dee’s arrival heightens the tension in a way that makes the back-and-forth feel like a chess match played on a moving floor.
The push-pull drama thickens as Dee begins trafficking in tuna cans, deodorant, and, crucially, illegal substances, provoking resistance from the prison’s enforcers, Gaz and Paul. The setup gestures toward a broader ecosystem of power, and the screenplay by Hunter Andrews and Eoin Doran supplies crisp, sly connective tissue that’s perhaps more resourceful than it is revelatory about the system itself.
Cinematographer Lorenzo Levrini threads a cold, blue-tinged look through the walls, giving the film a purgatorial mood rather than a purely punitive one. The camera darts and rattles during fights, as if tethered to the characters’ fists, occasionally catching droplets of spit and blood, which amplifies the sense of immersion without tipping into gimmickry. Even the interludes of jailer-like surveillance through phone footage feel like a mirror of the inmates’ own surveillance culture—an echo that makes the experience feel earned rather than stylized.
Taylor’s gaze is everywhere, and the weight of being watched—and of watching back—presses him to perform, to behave, and to survive. Jonsson bears that burden with an almost tangible gravity, making every scene land with the ache of consequence.
Director: Cal McMau. Cast: David Jonsson, Tom Blyth, Corin Silva, Alex Hassell, Neil Linpow. Rating: 18, Runtime: 90 minutes.
Wasteman arrives in cinemas on February 20.
