Jan Komasa appears to be developing into a director whose work is worth paying attention to. **HEEL** initially brings to mind **A CLOCKWORK ORANGE**, but evolves into something closer to a folk-horror take on **THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE**— a story about psychological distress, mandated recovery, and a troubled young man being pressured to become respectable. Before the film truly gets started, however, **HEEL** begins with what feels like fifteen different production company logos appearing on screen—a genuinely funny sequence that starts to resemble a gag from **FAMILY GUY** before the movie actually begins. Once it’s underway, though, the film really grabs you and rarely lets go. Tommy (played by Anson Boon), a young man from Yorkshire, struggles with alcohol, drugs, sex, and violence—creating chaos wherever he goes in a chaotic rush of excess. Like a music video by The Prodigy, Tommy mindlessly consumes and lashes out until one night when, while drunk, he’s separated from his friends after collapsing unconscious on the street. Upon waking, Tommy finds himself chained like an animal to a worn mattress in the cellar of a Yorkshire farmhouse, under the care of Chris (Stephen Graham). We suspect there are dark reasons for his abduction—though it's difficult to feel any sympathy for the unpleasant Tommy—as Chris makes his intentions clear: Tommy will be “corrected” until he can be accepted into their family as an older brother to their son Jonathan (Kit Rakusen) and a son to his wife Kathryn (Andrea Riseborough). Still dealing with a recent tragedy, Chris, Kathryn, and Jonathan—each hurting in their own way—have created a strange home life where Tommy isn't just their prisoner but a replacement intended to fill the emptiness that grief has left. Tommy doesn’t give in easily, resisting his imprisonment with insults and threats that highlight how unlikely this bizarre attempt at rehabilitation really is. The more Chris tries to mold Tommy into a civilized person, the clearer it becomes that this strange recovery might change everyone involved. Komasa's film (written by Bartek Bartosik and Naqqash Khalid) has several surprises in this psychological story about family, trauma, acceptance, and trust, raising the question: can empathy be taught to someone as lost as Tommy? With excellent performances from Boon, the consistently impressive Graham, and Riseborough, **HEEL** is one of the biggest surprises of the year—a disturbing yet unexpectedly touching look at broken people trying to heal each other through flawed methods. What starts as a dark story about captivity and forced rehabilitation gradually becomes something more compassionate, suggesting that even in those who seem beyond redemption, empathy might not just be natural—it can be acquired.

Source on TMDB