Wasteman review – Brutal prison drama is a showcase for one of Britain’s most exciting young actors

Cal McMau’s feature debut doesn’t offer much new to the prison drama genre, but it boasts complexity and grace in the performances of its leading men

Keep your eye on David Jonsson. The 32-year-old actor has built up a steady momentum, transmuting his brief stint on HBO’s finance drama Industry, one of the UK’s most productive talent factories, into a wide array of big-screen roles: a winsome romcom lead in Rye Lane (2023), a stammering synthetic in Alien: Romulus (2024), and a tortured idealist in the Stephen King adaptationThe Long Walk (2025). It’s already an impressive CV, yet it feels like Jonsson is on the precipice of something major. If you see him in Wasteman, you’ll understand why.

Cal McMau’s debut takes the well-worn path of prison dramas, focusing on a violent feud waged between cell block bunkbeds. But there’s enough of a noxious stink in the air – the sense that all the system does is create a microcosm of the state, with even less power to scrap over – that Jonsson has the material he needs to fully mesmerise. He finds poetry within the brutality, his eyebrows turned upward like hands in prayer, his sentences all half-swallowed by his own tongue. He can act as nervous as a mouse, but the resilience is always there; the survivor’s drive.

Here he plays Taylor, the kind of guy who is easily chewed up by the prison system, a recovering Subutex addict sentenced to 13 years for one horrible mistake. He’s told, all of a sudden, that he’s eligible for parole. It’s not for anything he’s achieved; they’re just trying to free up the place a little. But it does mean he might finally see his son, a 14-year-old who doesn’t even remember his face. All he has to do is stay on his best behaviour. Enter Dee (Tom Blyth).

Taylor’s new cellmate turns up bellowing Tony Bennett’s “The Good Life”, with blood on his sweatshirt collar and a crazed look in his eye. He’s a swaggering archetype saved by the small touches of grace in Blyth’s performance. It makes him a far more interesting sparring partner for Jonsson’s character.

But Dee has come to hustle, dealing in tuna cans, deodorant, and, most importantly, illegal substances, much to the chagrin of the prison’s top dogs, Gaz (Corin Silva) and Paul (Alex Hassell). Shivs at the ready. Blood will hit the concrete floor before the week is over. There’s some tidy, clever narrative work in Hunter Andrews and Eoin Doran’s script; more gripping, perhaps, than illuminating on its subject.

David Jonsson and Tom Blyth in ‘Wasteman’ (Lionsgate)

But cinematographer Lorenzo Levrini lights these cells hauntingly, chilled blue like purgatory instead of hell on earth, and the camera starts to rattle around during every punch-up like it’s attached directly to the characters’ fists, taking the occasional direct hit of spit or spitted blood. It feels immersive without feeling crushed by its own style, even with McMau’s frequent intercutting of phone footage – there’s a suggestion here that the surveillance instituted by the jailers is being happily replicated by the jailed.

You can certainly feel those eyes on Taylor, who’s damned if he acts, even more damned if he doesn’t. It’s an overwhelming burden for a man to carry. And with Jonsson doing the carrying – well, we feel every pound of its weight.

Dir: Cal McMau. Starring: David Jonsson, Tom Blyth, Corin Silva, Alex Hassell, Neil Linpow. Cert 18, 90 minutes.

‘Wasteman’ is in cinemas from 20 February