The film “Heel” was previously titled “Good Boy” in 2025 till one other film referred to as “Good Boy” — that one a few canine making an attempt to guard his beloved proprietor from malevolent forces — compelled a reputation change however compelled simply as a lot style acclaim. The most recent movie from Polish filmmaker Jan Komasa follows a 19-year-old degenerate raver from London who, within the final gasp of an all-time bender, is kidnapped by Stephen Graham and chained up within the basement of a fancy property. It’s additionally a few troubled younger man en path to redemption, not not like Komasa’s Oscar-nominated movie from 2020 “Corpus Christi.”
The why behind the kidnapping is teased with considerably overplayed narrative breadcrumbs all through this 110-minute film that has the spirit of Greek New Wave cinema (from Yorgos Lanthimos to the metastasizing household toxicity of an early days entry like “Miss Violence,” which it is best to completely search out if you wish to really feel actually sick). But “Heel” might’ve benefited from the economic system of filmmaking normally seen from that collective; a snippier edit would’ve actually helped tighten the noose — excuse me, collar. “Anniversary” director Komasaalthough, brings sufficient visible polish to the fabric to maintain you within the palm of his hand.
The reasoning behind Tommy’s (Anson Boon, in a robust breakout efficiency from the once-younger “1917” actor) captivity in a stranger’s dank cellar, the place meant-to-be-soothing nature sounds blare from a boombox however develop tantamount to dripping water torture, seems to be pretty customary, plucked out of your primary family-trauma rosebush. However the place “Heel” is most sudden is within the advanced tangle of emotions that take type between the reedy, urchin-like Tommy (whom it seems comes from a fairly steady middle-class house) and his “discovered household,” i.e., captors, performed by Graham and an all the time freaky Andrea Riseborough.
Tommy is a celebration animal with a penchant for oversharing on social media — and overdoing it not solely on medication and alcohol however within the ache he desires to inflict on others. He careens by way of London’s nightlife in a blackout stupor early within the movie, solely to awake in a basement belonging to Chris (Graham, in a very completely different and creepy mode in comparison with “Adolescence”) and Kathryn (Riseborough, shellshocked by previous scars, however with finally extra company than you’d anticipate), whom her husband retains calling “princess.” They received’t inform Tommy why he’s there, however any willfulness is met with a agency beating and Chris placing him down, saying “dangerous boy, dangerous boy, dangerous boy” as he pelts him with a billy membership.
Additionally they have a small son, Jonathan (Equipment Rakusen), who provides Tommy the one shred of humanity of the lot. Inevitably “tamed,” or a minimum of calmed down, Chris permits Tommy to stay extra freely within the upstairs quarters, with the canine collar and chains round his neck outfitted to an elaborate pulley system on the ceilings. They shock him on his birthday with a picnic al fresco; is he truly beginning to heat to those individuals, these individuals who maintain a bell affixed to him always, or has he been brainwashed?
As soon as it turns into clear that Tommy will not be the primary sufferer of Chris and Kathryn’s scheme, and that household trauma may need one thing to do with it, he plots an escape. However what’s Tommy going house to? The script, penned by Bartek Bartosik and Naqqash Khalid, turns into bizarrely moralistic by the top, insinuating that the debased and debauched would possibly maybe see their issues solved by changing into domesticated. That’s one solution to learn the movie, anyway, aside from as an entertaining type of hostage thriller about a particularly dysfunctional household. There’s a “humorous” second when Tommy almost chokes himself to demise making an attempt to steal a knife from a kitchen drawer whereas Chris and Kathryn slow-dance to “Smoke Will get in Your Eyes” by The Platters out on the terrace.
Graham and Riseborough are predictably robust and uniquely unsettling in roles that each play off and stretch their consolation zones. But it surely’s Boon as Tommy, who begins the film as an actual prick, a scallywag, and finally ends up a fairly delicate chap, who arrives as one thing of a revelation. With any much less succesful actor in his sneakers, he couldn’t promote the inherent ridiculousness (and eventual cliches) of the premise and the half. You would possibly want “Heel” had been a bit funnier, a bit scarier, a bit extra twisted, however it’s nonetheless pungently creepy in the suitable methods and anchored by a collection of top-tier actors able to wringing empathy out of the darkest Freudian corners of a fucked-up household.
Grade: B-
“Heel” premiered on the 2025 Toronto Worldwide Movie Pageant. Magnolia Photos releases it in choose theaters on Friday, March 6, 2026.
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