Not to be confused with 2013 coming-of-age comedy starring Zoe Kravitz and Douglas Smith, Treading Water (2024) shown in Official Selection at this year’s BFI London Film Festival is a gritty but compassionate debut drama from writer-director Gino Evans set in Manchester about an ex-con with addiction and mental health issues struggling to adjust to life on the outside.
It sounds vaguely familiar because it does follow the narrative and tropes of many urban British films in its attempts at feeling authentic. However, Evans is onto something intriguing and altogether significant in portraying mental health issues facing ex-prisoners, by visually showing the inner workings of main character Danny’s mind (brilliantly played by Mancunian newcomer Joe Gill) as a series of graphic intrusive thoughts that deliver gut punches to the senses.
Small-time criminal Danny is newly released from prison and takes up residence in a halfway house with anti-drugs policy, as his family struggle to give him the support for his heroin addition and mental health issues. He tries to contain his disturbing episodes with help from caseworkers at the new residence, but plagued by obtrusive thoughts caused by spiralling Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), he escapes onto the streets at night to score a hit that he believes will silence his demons.
A chance encounter with sex worker and former school friend Laura (Becky Bowe) gives him purpose and relief from his own predicament. Danny tries to woo his old flame and mother of one, who is also pregnant by an abusive partner, with promises of a better life. The fallout is challenging for all involved.
This is Danny’s story, told through his eyes as a series of shockingly violent moments of alternative reality as stress mounts up for him. These episodes are not for the faint-hearted. Gill is utterly convincing and captivating as the ex-con, delivering a fascinating kaleidoscope of fractured emotions that never leave us alienated from his character. In fact, in the roughest of moments we continue to empathise with Danny, as fate deals him yet another rubbish hand to juggle.
As the other caseworkers and medical professionals continually state; Danny is not a bad person, just a person who does bad things. This mantra is what Evans wants us to take away from his story; to consider the plight of the incarcerated population with mental health issues on release. It is directed with a great deal of respect for those in need and those who try to help them.
Sam Cronin’s cinematography captures enthralling shades of light and dark, resembling the world as Danny sees it, from closeups of key emotional moments to Manchester’s panorama with its twinkling lights of hope of something better beyond. Danny and Laura’s intimate and carefree scenes feature on a hill overlooking this view, though surrounded by an encroaching darkness as their desperation at prolonging these carefree and nostalgic moments is palpable.
There are some hearty scenes of camaraderie between Danny and his new oddball ‘family’ members at the house, including a great performance by Darryl Clark as Rob that challenges film norms of those in rehab. If anything, Laura’s dangerous partner Warren (an impressive turn from Manchester-based actor Darren Connolly of Peaky Blinders) feels stereotypical initially, before his character briefly surprises our perceptions.
Evans effectively considers how to best represent a microcosm of life in rehab and the characters that populate it for cinema, giving Treading Water an energetic authenticity and nonfictional edge that instinctively pleads with us to avoid labelling those in recovery.
