Salvation

Writer-director Tom Nicoll’s assured debut feature understands something many films about youthful masculinity miss: that misplaced ambition is less about arrogance than hunger for purpose. This is what ultimately fuels Danny (Liam Harkins) — an overly confident man in his late twenties — to pursue a career as a life coach, inspired by a Svengali-like figure who promises riches and influence. But the road to wealth proves more treacherous than expected, particularly in Scotland’s post-industrial Inverclyde region. Deeply in debt and increasingly desperate, Danny finds himself enticed into reckless schemes to keep the lights on and the illusion intact.

Into this precarious situation comes Scott (a marvellous Stephen McMillan), Danny’s first client who’s perhaps even more adrift than his coach and struggling beneath an overbearing, unkind father. Nicoll has a sharp eye for the language of male self-improvement culture and online influencers who promise the world but only feed delusion; he never lets the film curdle into caricature at his characters’ expense.

Harkins’ skilfully played Danny invites us to cringe at his grandiosity and self-deception while never losing sight of his sincerity, loneliness, or very real need to matter to someone, including himself. That balance gives Salvation its unnerving depth. Nicoll lays bare the impacts of extended adolescence with clarity rather than condescension, building a vivid world that announces a fresh voice in British cinema.

JASON RYLE