Animol

Taking a cue from his comrade in The Long Walk, David Jonsson, Tut Nyuot also graduates from musketeer to leading a gritty British prison drama, where his docile character finds himself at the mercy of the cell block’s top dogs.

Actor Ashley Walters’s directorial debut starts with audio over a dark screen, making the audience bear witness to the crime for which Troy (Nyuot) is incarcerated, exclusively from sound. As the details remain hauntingly obscured, one thing is certain: the young man is an accomplice at best, a tag-along, who didn’t listen to his own instincts and paid a bitter price. While Troy and two other young offenders are waiting to be processed, he is marked an easy target and coerced into smuggling contraband. In a blossoming bond with Polish inmate Krystian (Vladyslav Baliuk), Troy finds a beacon of hope, before realising opening his heart in a place like this comes with its own peril.

Walters proves an extraordinary aptitude for operating tense and thrilling scenes, reeling in the audience and keeping them engrossed in the characters’ fates. Occasionally there is a discrepancy between direction and script, when the spoken words are meant to convey feelings that aren’t necessarily evident in the performance. When Troy tells Krystian to stay away from him, his phlegmatic reply, “Why? We are friends, ziomek, aren’t we?” is a betrayal the audience are meant to see in his eyes, rather than hear spelled out.

Overall the young actors work well together, capturing the spectrum of personalities and circumstances that led them here. Nyuot anchors the film with a raw, authentic portrayal. Stephen Graham’s role as corrections counsellor may be brief if measured in screen time, but the veteran instantly elevates every single moment he is in.

Animol offers an unflinching look at the toll of incarceration on a juvenile delinquent and the intensified pressure to uphold masculinity in such an environment. While the burden placed on its protagonist grows and intensifies with every day spent behind bars, the film, to its credit, it is perfectly aware that not everything can be resolved within 90 minutes. The viewer is left contemplating the systems in place, even once the credits relieve them of the responsibility. As a result, Walters has laid an important foundation.

Selina Sondermann

Animol does not have a release date yet.

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