There’s a genuine creepiness to this film, very reminiscent of ‘A Clockwork Orange’ in its themes of mind control and the forced reform of an out-of-control young man – turning him into a supposedly respectable citizen through coercion and psychological pressure. It raises that central question: do people really change for the better, or simply conform because they’re forced to become what society expects?

Tommy (Anson Boon), is antisocial, violent and utterly callous. He cheats, lashes out, and shows no regard for anyone else – life is just one long party of selfish impulses. Then he wakes up chained by the neck in the basement of a seemingly ordinary middle-class family, who are intent on using similarly coercive methods to “reform” him and turn him into a “good boy.”

At first, Tommy’s instincts are purely to escape, but what complicates things is the unexpected tenderness he begins to experience. For perhaps the first time, he is treated with a degree of care and even respect – the complete opposite of how he has lived his life in the world outside. The more his behaviour softens, the more freedom he is given, including a birthday adventure into the great outdoors, as the family attempt to integrate him into their world.

The couple, played by Stephen Graham and Andrea Riseborough, are clearly carrying their own trauma, though it’s never fully explained – and that ambiguity feels deliberate. There’s a sense that taking Tommy in is their way of addressing some past loss or failure, a form of restitution that they genuinely believe is morally justified.

The film cleverly updates ‘A Clockwork Orange’ for a modern context: Tommy is forced to watch his own TikTok videos, confronting the reality of his bullying and antisocial behaviour. He’s made to sit through them until it becomes unbearable, suggesting that self-recognition, however painful, might be the key to transformation. The question the film leaves us with is whether that transformation is real, or simply another form of control.