When is someone’s sentence truly over? The punishment often matches the crime, but what happens when the crime is so distasteful that any judicial ruling pales in comparison to what the world has in store when the accused is released? It’s a weighty, thorny topic, and nigh-on impossible to reckon with in an age of social justice, where increased publicity around crimes of a sensitive nature marks those responsible with a distinctly unattractive odour no one wants to be around. Max Defalco’s debut feature TEN WILL is a hard-to-stomach extrapolation of those ideas, unpicking the concept of guilt in the 21st century and otherwise picking at the scab of its character’s willingness to heal and move on after an unthinkable act.
Mikul Robins is the titular Ten (an alias which meaning is best kept secret until the third act), a schlubby loser just out of prison on a mission across Los Angeles. His van won’t start and the clock is ticking on an important appointment he has to keep for 2 o’clock that afternoon. Attempting to hitch, cadge a car and otherwise hot foot it to his destination, his high-intensity struggle for redemption on the apathetic streets of LA is sweaty, frazzled and fraught. There is one catch, however: his endgame is to register as a sex offender, lest he be cast back into the jail from whence he came.
That’s one tough-to-swallow concept, and an uphill battle for both director and actor to make you invested in Ten’s struggle. The nature of Ten’s crimes remain a mystery until the very final moments of the film, and keeping the details under wraps for as long creates an uneasy feeling throughout, piling the queasiness on top of the already stressful story structure. Ten pinballs between schemes with all the energy of a panic attack; between a carwash-for-hitchhiking operation to a desperate plea to a forgetful aunt that sees him unwittingly wander into a lunchtime tryst, there’s an entire Safdie Brothers film of highly-strung ideas woven into TEN WILL’s first half.
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Surrounding Robins’ Picaresque idiot are a wealth of fascinating faces, from Twin Peaks: The Return’s Kathleen Deming (the single-scene limelight stealer Buella: “it’s a world of truck drivers”) as a hard-nosed neighbourhood watch officer to singer Harvey Fisher’s abrasive elder, and it’s refreshing to see a story told by a diverse and characterful ensemble very firmly on street-level. There isn’t a whiff of vanity to any of the performances here, holding a brave face as the game cast do and say terrible, terrible things in the name of a horrible but unfortunately fairly likely situation. Robins himself manages to stoke up a certain degree of hangdog sympathy against all odds, and he remains an intriguing anchor for the icky moral core at the film’s centre.
However, it’s that ickiness that oozes out of unflattering places in TEN WILL, spreading its cynicism very thickly across the course of the drama. One pivot in the middle of the film sends Ten off on a different mission that lands him in the loving arms of Lillian, a large, immobile and very sweet lady that doesn’t quite meet Ten’s delusional expectations. Although Peggy Fields Richardson gives an extremely endearing performance, there’s something about her presentation that feels unpleasantly patronising, framing the victim of a vile, manipulative scumbag as an enduring sap incapable of seeing through the horseshit. When the film flips back into the realm of Kafkaesque farce, there’s a sense of hard truths and bitter conscience that rightfully takes over, yet Lillian seems to be left in the dust, having learned little yet experienced plenty.
TEN WILL’s horrifically ominous ending feels like a plunge into an ice bath after a gentle paddle in Toilet Duck for 80 minutes, and whether or not that sounds like a worthwhile experience to you will differ from person to person. Its kinetic style, full of long lensing and snap zooms, is a gauntlet for die-hard fans of underground exploitation and Adult Swim, and the acrid subject matter is something that even Todd Solondz and Sean Baker might think twice about approaching. Whether or not Defalco’s film speaks a truth behind its brimming malice is up for debate, either landing as a brutal vision of a morally bankrupt world, a deliberately bleak and mean-spirited gaze into the abyss, or simply an overreaching scaremonger of a dark comedy eager to provoke.
TEN WILL HAD ITS WORLD PREMIERE AT SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2026
Very cool. Thank you 😊