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...