Jan Komasa has built a career on morally uncomfortable premises executed with absolute conviction. Corpus Christi earned him an Oscar nomination by asking audiences to sympathize with an ex-convict impersonating a priest. The Hater weaponized social media manipulation into genuine menace. Now Heel chains Anson Boon in a basement and dares you to figure out who deserves your sympathy–the violent criminal or the family torturing him into compliance.
The trailer establishes the setup with disturbing efficiency. Tommy, a 19-year-old who “revels in a life of drugs, parties, and violence,” gets separated from his friends during a bender and wakes up chained in the basement of Chris and Kathryn’s isolated suburban home. The couple, along with their young son Jonathan, have decided to reform his behavior through what they call rehabilitation but looks considerably more like psychological torture.
The Clockwork Orange DNA Is Obvious–But Komasa’s Approach Is Different
The comparison to Kubrick’s dystopian classic is unavoidable, and the source material acknowledges it directly. Both films center on violent young men subjected to forced behavioral modification. But where A Clockwork Orange operated through state apparatus and clinical detachment, Heel drops the same premise into domestic space. The horror becomes intimate–a family project rather than government program.
Stephen Graham plays Chris, the abductor, and the casting alone signals the film’s ambitions. Graham doesn’t do simple villainy; his best work (This Is England, The Irishman, Boiling Point) finds the damage beneath the menace. Andrea Riseborough as Kathryn suggests the wife isn’t a passive accomplice–the trailer hints at someone equally invested in this twisted rehabilitation.
Anson Boon, whose work in 1917 and Pistol showed range beyond his years, carries the physical and psychological burden of a role that requires him to be both victim and monster. The title change from Good Boy to Heel shifts emphasis–from the condescending command given to the captive toward something that could reference either submission or wound.
What The Heel Trailer Reveals About Komasa’s Method
The footage suggests Komasa is leaning into genre mechanics while maintaining his characteristic moral ambiguity. The suburban setting–bright, clean, aggressively normal–creates dissonance against the basement imprisonment. The family’s interactions with Tommy oscillate between nurturing and sadistic, never letting audiences settle into comfortable identification with either side.
The trailer’s most effective moments aren’t the violence but the domesticity. Scenes of the family going about their routines while a young man remains chained downstairs carry more dread than any physical confrontation. Komasa understands that the most disturbing aspect of his premise isn’t the captivity–it’s the banality surrounding it.
The Festival Path Raises Questions
Heel premiered at TIFF 2025 and played London Film Festival, but notably didn’t travel the wider circuit that typically builds Oscar-season momentum. That limited festival footprint could mean several things: the film is too divisive for broad awards consideration, Magnolia wanted to protect its theatrical release, or the material simply didn’t connect with programmers beyond those initial prestigious slots.
The March release date positions Heel as counterprogramming against whatever blockbusters dominate–a strategy that worked for similar provocations like Get Out and Us. Whether audiences will embrace something this deliberately uncomfortable remains uncertain. Komasa’s previous films found their audiences, but they also had the benefit of festival heat translating into platform releases. Heel is betting on theatrical performance in an era when challenging mid-budget thrillers often struggle to find screens.
The film works if Komasa maintains the ambiguity that made Corpus Christi compelling–if both Tommy’s violence and the family’s “cure” feel equally wrong. If the film tips too far toward either victim-sympathy or rehabilitation-justification, it becomes a different, lesser movie. The trailer suggests Komasa knows exactly where that line sits. Whether he walks it for the full runtime is the question March will answer.
FAQ: Heel Film and Jan Komasa’s Thriller
Why does casting Stephen Graham signal specific ambitions for Heel’s moral complexity?
Graham built his reputation on roles that refuse easy categorization–men capable of both tenderness and violence, often within the same scene. His presence suggests Chris won’t be a simple captor but someone whose motivations the film will explore without necessarily excusing, which is exactly the territory Komasa operates in best.
How does the title change from Good Boy to Heel shift the film’s positioning?
“Good Boy” framed the story from the captors’ perspective–their condescending command to a man they’re treating like an animal. “Heel” is more ambiguous, suggesting either the dog-training meaning or a wound, and it refuses to tell audiences whose side they should take before entering the theater.
